A Divine City Fallen from Grace; What Can We Learn from Atlantis?

[00:00:00]The way that I'm framing up the Critius in my own understanding and interpretation of it is that uh nothing can really be left ignored. It's almost like a Hitchcock film.

[00:00:11]>> They're showing us, they're modeling in this particular text the importance of you pass on a tradition via making up your own stories. Strife is absolutely necessary you know for our waking up.

[00:00:32]>> Tell me why do the things that are beautiful always have a darker side. Oh dear dima, tell me I could never put it up underneath the dirt and scarf.

[00:00:59]>> All right, welcome back to another episode of the latter journeys and platonic mysticism. Uh today we're going to do something a bit different. Uh we're going to explore a text uh of Plato's one that is slightly obscure and enigmatic. Uh it's called the Critius.

[00:01:15]And joining me are two amazing uh colleagues, Ike Baker from the podcast Arcanium, and Greg Shaw, author of the soul, uh expert in eamblicus and the late Neoplatonic tradition. Uh I found that this text is one of the most enigmatic Latonic texts um that I've ever read and reread. Uh and I wondered what would happen if we did a kind of book club uh where we all right despite the fact that none of us are experts in this particular text what could we learn from each other reading this this very strange um text. So the background is that uh we have Plato's time and in Plato's Tameus uh it begins um with a kind of illusion to the republic and the beautiful calipolis or utopian city uh that Socrates constructs um in that particular dialogue uh and in the time it seems as if the republic has taken place the day before. I have arguments for why I don't think that that is the case. Um I think that that the um summary of the republic that Socrates gave Tameus and uh Critius and Homocrates uh is actually a younger version, right? Or a more uh immature version of the republic that he's been reciting uh for years, but I won't get into that particular argument. Uh but these uh three fellows uh sends one other inviteee who is too sick to show up have come to Socrates to have a a feast of words as a thanksgiving uh for what Socrates did the day before h as far as you know building this calipulus or this utopian city. And Tameus's gift is a cosmology. He he constructs the world uh how it was born uh from the demiurge and kora and the creation of the world soul and our embodied lives from a mixture of reason and necessity and so Tomus gives this amazing uh cosmology and then after it's overritus goes and now critus is given a prelude to his feast of words his thanksgiving to Socrates uh in the taeus which is I vaguely remember uh this particular story about a city that actually uh did exist and that city was Athens h and it was exactly as you had it Socrates uh but it was a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away 9,000 years ago to be precise uh and it's a story that I heard from uh my grandfather when I was a little kid and I vaguely remember all these little uh details and we'll get into those details in just a second but basically to uh hop into the story. This is the infamous myth of Atlantis, right?

[00:04:05]Uh and that this is how Critius is going uh to say thank you to Socrates for the Calipolis. So this is his response uh speech and he's he basically wants to say this is historical fact that Atlantis existed and this is not the perfect city. This is the tyrannical city um that war with Athens which was the perfect city. Um uh so people who think that Atlantis was the utopia uh they haven't actually read their text.

[00:04:33]Uh but hey who who might be a stickler.

[00:04:35]Um uh but in any case uh the point is is that now we have the dialogue litius and most people for some strange reason don't read this follow-up where we get this kind of first off a description of what Athens was like um and its beautiful uh tripartite perfect nature and then it moves to Atlantis talking about its more divine craftsmanship right there's there's something there's there's a kind of difference that Athens is the Calipulus in its kind of perfect telos of mortality. But then we get the different picture of Atlantis and Atlantis born from Prooseidon uh and his wedding with Cleto the uh the beautiful daughter um uh and the creation of this island with eight rings if I remember correctly different levels and a set of five twins um as the sons of Cleo and Poseidon. And there's all sorts of interesting obscure details about the the look of the land um uh the nature of their piety so on and so forth. But the text seems to abruptly end right right when this island um people uh are starting to lose a certain kind of faith and reverence for virtue and the divine and then just ends just just ends. uh you're left wanting, you're thinking, uh what would have happened if there was the rest of this text? And so you have to ask yourself, did Plato end it like this on purpose or you know, did he decide to go ahead and write something else? Um in any case, we'll talk about that in just a second. Um and so I hope that was a a succinct summary uh of the Taeus and the Critius. Uh and now we can kind of just jump into the opening. It opens with Taeus finishing his uh cosmic and I want to note that in the Tus begins his likely story of the coming of into being of the cosmos saying that it's right and true and just to pray to the gods uh before starting any endeavor. But weirdly he doesn't pray.

[00:06:50]He just goes into the cosmology. But then when you read the Critius things make a little bit more sense. So, I'm going to read the opening paragraph. Uh, how gladly do I uh welcome my release, Socrates, for my protracted discourse, even as a traveler who takes his rest after a long journey. And I make my prayer to that God who has recently been created by our speech, although in reality created uh long ago. And so basically he's ending his likely story by saying that the entire likely story of the coming into being of the cosmos uh and the the birth of the world. So this god that he's talking uh about this was his prayer that his entire philosophical activity was the prayer itself. I just think that's a beautiful way to open.

[00:07:42]>> Yeah, absolutely. Um Greg, do you have any thoughts? I I don't want to cut you off for you. Uh, well, I do, but go ahead because if you got one, you're right on the tip of your tongue. Go for it. But I do have a thought. I can bring up something on that first paragraph.

[00:08:00]>> Yeah. Um, I mean, obviously there are, uh, just to point out the obvious, there's this, uh, you know, um, idea of of of of virtue, but I I I tend to see, uh, kind of like, as I said in the beginning, I I I tend to see um, I said this off camerara to you guys, but, I tend to see Plato as constructing these grand um, um or or maybe subtle mythologies. I see him as participating in a tradition of mythographers uh that were present um along the the lines prescratically um in the prescratic tradition that he sort of follows in like the orphic and and Pythagorean and so on and so forth.

[00:08:52]So he's uh you know I I think that and I'll this is just something that I kind of always preface anytime I'm about to talk about a platonic dialogue with I think everything is significant. Every line is significant. every way that he chooses to exemplify something, uh, you know, any way that he delineates something, it's, you know, I don't think a lot of people are clued into the the minute level of architecture behind these things. We're used to reading fiction. We're used to sort of a more modern understanding of of how and why you would write something, right?

[00:09:35]which is it's sort of commercial in nature uh to modern people. But again to to state what what is likely painstakingly obvious to the both of you but maybe not so to everyone listening um I think that the key to a lot of particularly the time the republic and then the kind of the way that I'm framing up the critius in my own understanding and interpretation of it is that uh nothing can really be left ignored. It's almost like a Hitchcock film, you know, everything has this little sort of very very uh predestined place.

[00:10:15]>> No, but I mean like he's like even in the opening line uh because he says this has been his protracted journey, right?

[00:10:21]Like this has been a long journey and so he's definitely giving a hat tip like here I just created a world uh and it's been a long journey in that world so please. And so it's very Odysian, right?

[00:10:31]like that he's he's giving that nod that that that the entire uh cosmology was a kind of movement uh uh journey itself and that's a prayer right like that when you live this way right when you're creating these stories these icos mos this that that yeah you're going to this is the prayerful life um and so I definitely agree it's one of the reasons why I wanted both of you guys uh um to help me through this text because like I like I know that the that there's some sort of minutia that I'm missing because I just don't have the same esoteric background as both of you. And so um uh but yeah, so Greg, you were gonna say something about the opening >> the Tus speaking.

[00:11:14]It really struck me when he says, "So I make my prayer uh to the God who's been born uh but in our tale." So that the whole story that he told which is the Tmus is the God that he has in a way done some magic of creating a god in his story. There a sort of a magical practice going on here through his narrating of of um the cosmology.

[00:11:43]And that kind of struck me as as a powerful thing to say. And then he goes on to say, uh all right, I think we're on the right track here. But if we go off track, he says the right penalty is that he who strays from tune should be brought back to it. Strays from tune um loses the music of of of the discourse.

[00:12:08]And that whole that that really struck me also is that what is the tune?

[00:12:13]They're all sort of intuitively kind of in sync with some sort of vibe. I'll call it a vibe that that Tus has has just revealed to them as the god. And at the very end of of the critus, which is not really an end, but an abrupt um stopping um that Zeus is about to um discipline these Atlanteans for uh losing their virtue and give them a discipline that might bring them back to tune.

[00:12:47]So there's a sense that there's a tune.

[00:12:49]Um and I don't want to sound too uh interdisciplinary religious studies here but I think that uh in the Indian tradition there's a term called retita which is like the music of reality that that reality is imagined as a kind of musical construction a song if you like there's some kind of they're tuning in to something that they believe exists and that what Timus did in his um telling of his cosmology was to basically invoke the god by by speaking his his creation story. And that that was a pretty big deal deal to do. Now, as far as Critius's actual story here, um I just maybe I was just too dense to really um see through it or maybe just reading my English translation didn't open it up to me. So I'd be very interested to know if there are any sort of like glimpses of something deep that either one of you have found in the critius because I I mean apart from the obvious okay this is how it's arranged there were five you know sons and um this Poseidon and ClT and you know but I took that more in a sort of a just a literal level instead of an I didn't get a lot of insight from it. So help me out. Well, just to just to to kind of hop on to uh your singing and hymn like think about Socrates's response, right, which like totally marries or is in concord uh with everything that you just said. So, first off, they've made a compact. So, I think you're absolutely 100% right that there's a kind of ritual kind of magic kind of thing happening here because they've they've made a compact and this is this is what they have to do uh and to be in accord with each other which is to give each other speeches that bring into life to animates right the republic or animates the calipolis or the utopia uh that Socrates has put in speech so really makes it come alive so makes it a living statue right uh so to speak so They're they're doing that work of animating words, animating a speech, making it really embodied in each of them, showing Socrates, proving to Socrates that we've heard what you said and we are now creators of mythologies or stories or people so on and so forth. Uh and and that here when Socrates responds to Citrius's request. So Critius after Taeus um has passed the baton says hey Timus got um uh some forbearance or you know uh got got some what is the word I'm looking for leniency about his story uh because he was talking about the creation of the universe and all we can ever have is a 99% story. We can never have uh the perfect absolute uh scientific story. This is always a likely story. Even to this day, every story about you know that coming into being in the cosmos is is what you're reaching for. It's the it's the it's the best approximation that science can give. Uh and so Critius kind of uh stops and says, I want the same leniency. Uh and I I think I should have more because I'm going to be talking about mortals, right? And this picture of the emergence of mortals in this particular uh story uh is a whole lot more familiar to people. So it's kind of like looking looking at a painting. He says uh where when we look at a painting of the gods, we're like, "Okay, we'll let them get away with it. It it could be, you know, the blue phase or whatever because we really don't know what's going on with the gods. So you can make a picture of a dot and call it Poseidon and we'll be okay with that." Right? Uh and that's that's to be hyperbolic. He's just saying when it comes to human beings and pictures of human beings, we tend to be more critical. So please guys, give me a little bit more leniency even though this is historical fact. And then Socrates basically says um that yeah, you're right. Um this is the theater of it all. So you know and giving this kind of hat tip to the drama uh that is occurring and he even calls uh Taeus a poet, right? uh and you know and it calls what time is just did a hymn and then basically says this this is now your turn to be you know the payon and uh and to be inspired by Apollo and the muses and and then Critius comes back and says not only should I pray to Apollo and the muses I need to pray to memory right uh this this is the goddess that uh really will uh help me uh to remember this story uh that I was told when I was a kid getting ready ready for a festival and a festival that's all about telling madeup stories uh by the way um uh uh that my grandfather told me uh and my grandfather heard it from his friend who heard it directly from Solon um and Solon heard it from the Egyptian priest and then Allah uh he tells the story and so no I I I do think that there is something to what Ike was just saying about they're showing us they're modeling in this particular text. the importance of you pass on a tradition via making up your own stories uh that actually are encoded with different little pieces of symbolism that if you understood and you collect stories from other people, you might actually be able to also create and make animated statues with your words or with your hymns or with your way of life. And so that's for me one of the coolest things about this text.

[00:18:39]>> One point that you uh refer to that Critius uh brings up himself is that what he's doing is a lot harder than what Tmus did because he's talking about things that people are familiar with and um so they have they have some um they have some something in the game. What what's that called? Um anyway yeah right they're stake. They have a stake in the game because they're living it. And it's a lot easier to talk about a place where we don't live and and we're imagining gods up there like little dots as you put it or whatever we want to imagine.

[00:19:18]Nobody can criticize us because nobody knows. But you start to talk about what people are like and you know people and so you're going to be very critical of the descriptions that someone says. So what what this strikes me here is that I think they want to bring that whole divine structure in and make it accessible in real life. Um and making it accessible in real life is subject to incredible amount of criticism. Uh because real life we all kind of know what it is. But I think that's in a way the only real task a platonism out of every religion uh is how do you bring that divine world into an incarnate expression and that's that's the magic the real magic they're they're in a sense you could say they're kind of doing it through sharing speeches and sharing stories. So that's a step in the right direction. that's their way of staying in tune.

[00:20:22]But the music is, you call it eternal music, and they're trying to pick up on it. Um, but I think that's the hard thing to do.

[00:20:32]I mean, it that's that's the whole task.

[00:20:34]How do you incarnate the divine into the mortal? And that's kind of what he's talking about. I I think that's one way to look at it.

[00:20:42]>> Yeah. And I mean the the there's there's a whole context here that I think if you understand classical Greece and and right nobody writes anything does anything this conversation right now that we're having does not take place uh in in the vacuum of our conversation there's uh you know within the construct confines of it there's all of this context and this idea of uh particularly right uh the annoya uh and uh approaching nois is with it uh that that that sort of stratification of the the that the divided line delineates or something that we get in like the seventh letter where Plato is not effect to me I don't see Plato there as effectively categorizing in this aristoilian uh sort of you know context uh that we we just hyper tend to see Plato through aris the arisatilian sort of interpretation of it but I see him showing like look do you see what your mind Does do you see how you're gradually brought lower and lower towards illusion? Uh but the the whole purpose of of dialectic and of this kind of tapping in and approximating or or moving closer to uh the knowetic via dioya is a yos logos, you know, a holy speech. And especially when um somebody like Thymates is embodying this uh mythological account of cosmology.

[00:22:10]Yes. but also of cosmoggony, uh, you know, the creation of the of the cosmos and and the creation of the gods. He he is doing something that I think personally Greg would probably know better according to, you know, his own experiences in the the textual sources.

[00:22:26]But, um, I think it's it's very theoric in an embleleian sense. He's recreating the cosmogy in in all of that. So yeah, it's and it's interesting because nobody really what's great about them when they're when they're on a roll, nobody interrupts, which is really, you know, there like, okay, he's hot, right? It's like in jazz, right? Like he's taking a solo like nobody.

[00:22:48]>> Nobody interrupts, man.

[00:22:50]>> Yeah, he's tuned in.

[00:22:51]>> You're the craziest of ribs. No, I mean like but like when we think about the fact that the in the republic the the first thing that Socrates does is he talks about you know the importance of music and and having that music you know have a certain kind of rhythm and so that yes like this is how we get into these stories this way of life is is this these are the myths these are the stories that that we tell each other and if they get into our hearts right we're young then who knows can we go further right Um and so that these are the initiatory myths in some such sense, right? Uh that that bring us to be like uh I because like I have to be honest when I first read the Taeus I was not a fan. Um uh I heard ww music uh world soul kora uh but why because it's highly complicated but what was so interesting and I hope you guys have had this experience that's actually part of the initiation into the philosophical life is you know you don't understand you know it's confusing but some light bulb is still going off where you're like ah there's still something here and it's my fault right that I didn't get it. It's it's it's it's not the text. It's it's really just it's asking me try again. Try again. Try again. Uh and and so of course I've now read the tummy a billion times and now it's one of my uh favorite texts. And you know the critous being the obscure followup. Uh and it's about the myth of Atlantis. Something that still captures the hearts and minds of people to this day. I just cannot help but see it as because like for all it's worth like nobody in our popular culture remembers Taeus's cosmology except for people like ourselves right but everybody even people who have never read any Plato whatsoever and they don't remember Curtis's name but they remember Crus's story uh and that's pretty powerful uh in my eyes >> they don't remember his story they've sort of layered over a fantasy on top of his story. And I I wonder what you make of that. I mean, how did Atlantis become And I'm sure there's probably somewhere in the in Renaissance writers or just after them where people began to write about Atlantis in as a way of a a kind of a perfect place, but it's sure not in the Critius.

[00:25:17]And and yet in popular imagination, Atlantis is seen as this sort of divine and wonderful place. And um and I don't like to use this term much, but I do sometimes among the so-called new age kind of circuit. Atlantis is almost spoken of with sort of reverence. Oh, wonderful Atlantis. And I you know these people far better than I do and you know how they think and talk about Atlantis, right? What is going on? they they've sort of made it into a kind of um ideal place uh that we've lost and we want to get back to and yet Zeus is just about to kick their ass because they're so screwed up.

[00:25:59]Yeah, it's well a lot of that comes through the uh at least the more I would say the more newagy kind of appropriation of that mentality comes through um uh theosophical and and postlavatsky and theosophical writings that kind of went all over the place. Uh because there we see during this time period um a real veneration um in in in almost like you know putting putting it on a pedestal. uh this this leg and this happens so much so many times in in cultures where we look back and we I mean he might even be doing it Critius might be doing it about Athens uh you know and like making because it's so much older and so you know and and therefore likely agrarian and so far away from the troubles of today that that there's this veneration and really I think what it is is there's a a major psychological mechanism there that wants to project um the archetype or the ideal as as something that we have strayed from. Uh, and I mean, who knows? There could be soul memory that's informing that not necessarily as you know Atlantis Qua Atlantis but as as a a paradigm or again a mythological starting point for um you know I don't know what you what you would call the the journey away or the the proodos the emanation from that source point but I I see it very much so prevalent in those writings around the early early 20th century late 19th century. Um, just talking about uh, and a lot of it comes from Bllovzk's theory of the races. She calls them into play, the Atlanteanss, the Lemuranss, and and it just kind of goes off the rails once you you you know, you uh, put the the sort of ignite ignition fluid that YouTube can be. When you get when you throw that in into the new age mix, it just it has a tendency to kind of go viral. And people uh very interestingly these days they they put a lot of stock in in stuff that's you know got a relatively high view count on on things like YouTube when the the information could be completely um opinion. Uh but but that's that's you're right I do have a lot of I interact with these people on a daily basis so I do have a lot of kind of experience with them.

[00:28:25]But I mean like the one of the things that I find fascinating is is that if we remember that the republic is an analogy for the soul, right? And that everything that Socrates is doing in the republic is to try to describe the human soul in its concord state, right? Like when it reaches that point uh of harmony, right?

[00:28:46]And so that you know we've got our epitomos or the thumos uh and then our philosopher kings and queens, right? uh and when they're ordered in some such way uh we are in harmony or we have friendship with all the parts of what it means to be human and that Socrates has apparently asked Taeus and Critius and Hermocrates to construct stories that would animate this soul right uh this this city and speech or this harmonious and Taeus offers a cosmogyny that shows that the the entire cosmos is a harmony even with discord coordinate motion even with the the circle uh of the other, right? Like that you can even bring that you can bring the the dimly lit uh and chaotically moving Kora uh into a kind of maternal embrace uh where everything uh kind of just fits and has a proper tilos. And then Critius, right, he constructs two different cities, right?

[00:29:43]uh one I would argue is the is the republic but critus is then saying aha I also have a divine city because at first right the city of Prooseidon Atlantis is actually the perfect city um it and it's divinely ordained and it passes on its wisdom from generation to generation it stays divine it stays virtuous for many generations and it isn't until they stop reverencing the marriage of Cleto and Poseidon at the heart of their city. Uh so I would argue this divine feminine wisdom of the mother of the kora uh of the of the cleo of the the famous one that then they slip right and and then they become uh yeah not virtuous. Uh and and so here again like the philosopher kings and queens must be equal. Uh and so the the the the big problem is the the the loss of faith that comes from not telling the stories uh from generation to generation that makes it to where Zeus sees them in their their kind of uh hyper colonial.

[00:30:51]So this was the gifted Alabidian city had so much potential and did for a long long long time. Uh but then it slipped into hubris because of a a lack of remembering its origins. And so part of me actually thinks that the um critius doesn't abruptly end that it it was meant to end there because we were meant to remember the symposium and the split aparts and Zeus getting pissed uh as he always does and then so I I think the reference to twins is actually a reference to this the the myth of Aristophanes in uh the symposium of splitting like an egg uh people in half and and so that's why we have twins and that's what Zeus is going to do is just split them in half and never the twinning shall they be put back together except for prayers to love. Um >> you mentioned the twins and I was just completely drawing a blank. I've forgotten where they're mentioned in the crit and but there's a reference to twins because that's an interesting angle there that you're bringing in.

[00:31:54]>> Yeah, Cleto and Poseidon have five sets of twins. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Five sets of twins, right?

[00:32:02]and each one rules a different um ring in Atlantis. And so, >> okay. So, and I I thought too that that the ending is not um just because Plato died or it was an abrupt thing, but but it was intentional.

[00:32:17]>> Well, well, no, that Okay, but I mean that for a minute. If it's intentional, >> where does that push us? You know, how where does the ending push us? And it pushes us into a place of um recognizing that these Atlanteans who had stopped living the virtuous life and they were placing external things uh over their internal things that they they're going to be um brought back to tune which which is some sort of p and and you're thinking that the punishment could be like what you see in the symposium where the twins are where the people split um so that we have to find our other half.

[00:32:59]So that you could say laced throughout the Platonic writings is this notion of things that Zeus does to bring us back to tune. At least you see examples of it in the symposium >> that look like penalties but really are lessons or didactic moments. Um uh and so that you know you think about uh the apology where Socrates says look if you really think I've done something wrong teach me right uh so that this notion of the proper penalty is give me the proper instruction uh that's going to put me back into concord right uh that's going to bring harmony versus the penalty of wag your finger or drink your hemlock uh of shame or death um and so here yeah know I I think that one of the things that uh Plato is doing in this particular text is weaving back to mythologies um that he's already constructed in the the mouth of Aristophanes and Aristophanes was very clued in to the Orphic mysteries um with eggs and uh all that fun stuff and Mother Knight and all that you know oric kind of uh esoteric um wisdom. Even though I think he's cluing us in to Yeah. themes because I I this this entire text is laced with themes to other platonic dialogues. I I I think I could probably spend so the issue of the naming, right? For instance, Critius says, "Look, I'm going to say all these names in Greek." uh and uh that's okay because that's that's what we do as syncric thinkers is that we understand that they had Egyptian names in the mouth of one person and then uh you know other names in the mouth of another uh but Solon did put it in Greek and so I'm going to give the familiar Greek names but occasionally he peppers it with the you know Egyptian names or the original names of the Atlanteanss and then one of the ways they pass on virtue in Atlantis is by passing on the divine names and that's one of the things that they forget that causes them to be not virtuous and so there's something really important about the naming practices or the names in this particular text. So it's Poseidon and Cleto. Um uh and and that points of course to uh um goodness I'm having blanking really quickly. Uh oh you know what the catalus sorry where is that going? Um in any case, thank you that and really briefly he refers to Krops, Ericus, Ericthonius, Eric Thon, and most of the recorded names before Thesius um are names that he finds from Solon, but we we know their names, but we don't know what they stood for and the world that they created. And that's what was lost. So it's by remembering the names then that's the sort of the the string that we can grab to pull ourselves back into virtue. But we have to start with the names. It sounds like >> well and it it it serves also as a as a you know another hint at the hint at the the the sort of the tokens placed throughout the mythology that he's creating here. is you know in the way that we would con we would talk about um something like the tokens of the gods diffused throughout the cosmos there are tokens here signs and and and tips that he's giving us uh in terms of because the catalus is an exercise in effectively esoteric etmology you know to to a degree and you even look at something like cleto you know in late Greek at least it means hill and you know and and what where is she kept on the hill and then You look at Poseidon, right? Who's he's lord of the seas and of the depths, the bowels, uh uh uh the the the profoundity of the of the seas and what's emerging out of, you know, what is what is he in love with? What is he infatuated with? The little hill that rises up and right there you have something like the the you know, the emergence of the egg from the primordial chaos. And so I mean that that's that and that's straight out of the coffin texts in Egypt. The the whole idea of of atum atum the creator god the one creative deity emerges from the waters of of non which is void chaos we cannot conceive of it. This is the first point of conception and he blooms in into uh he hatches from the egg and he makes uh respectively fire and air shu and teenut uh and you have there the the water the uh or or the earth and the air and and you have these three primordial elements. So you see I I that's how I I look at this entire um text is is that I'm it's I really kind of went deep. And here's the thing I didn't sit there and analyze. I read it last night because I I I don't want to sit there and overanalyze because what's going to happen is I'm going to read it and things are going to jump out almost as if the text itself turns red and then and then from there I can kind of >> wake up this morning and and go back after I've bookmarked and kind of see flesh these things out and I I really see um an inversion of the the the time and cosmogy in the work of Poseidon here. I really see it and I I kind it kind of went po point for point by it. I mean, it's it's got similarities even to uh uh parts of of the Old Testament, you know, the similarities of the Genesis account of creation in the cosmos and all of that stuff. Um particularly the first the first account of of um of creation in Genesis because there's two, right? In Genesis 1, there's a plurality of deities that create uh human beings in the cosmos, right? Elohim being this kind of weird um mashup of a a a feminine verb with a a a masculine plural. And it's it's ultimately that's why it says, you know, Elohim says, "Let us make man in our image." Uh so on and so forth. And you see that going on in in the the Critius where where the gods have have been allotted to these various places and now they're by persuasion they're they're turning people into into you know these kind of sentient intelligent uh uh beings which is is quite interesting and uh the main thing there is to me like I could go on you could look at Deuteronomy the council of Elon that takes place where literally the highest god Eljon the the god God in the highest divides the earth into nations that that other supreme beings, other entities have a lotment over. You're going to rule these people. You're going to rule that nation. So on and so it's very similar to the aotment that's going on here. But the main thing the main thing that I that that the bell that was ringing for me is the Edenic state. The the ancient Athenian polace was the Edenic state for for them. And then you have this creation that is that is not of uh you know the the capital T or capital D demiorgus but of Poseidon who you know if you look and you my thought in in all this stuff is is tainted with with prolleian theology of course but he he saw he saw Zeus a Poseidon and Hades as a a triad of demiares. Zeus Zeus being the highest Poseidon being a medial demiurge. And if if you if you look at what he look at what's going on, he's creating these concentric spheres, right? In the river, the land, the sea, the land, the sea, the land, and then the hill. He's creating six or really seven concentric spheres in this kind of inversion of what we understand to be the the cosmo cosmological uh you know, nested concentric spheres.

[00:40:55]It's something like book 10 of the republic and the myth of which is exact.

[00:41:00]>> I was just going to bring And it even goes it goes further than that because he you know there's a duality also that's being implied rather than a unity or a triplicity because you've got the twins. Okay at Atlas is that he rules the center but his twin God rules the periphery and then you've got two sources of water that nourish the lands in great abundance. One of cold and one of hot. So the this two contending forces of the realm of duality rather than the ultimate you know then we're moving further away from the unity of the eternal upon which you know the the myth of the time is ultimately based and there's you know going back to the catalus and the epistemological tetrd things like the theotus we're we're effectively bringing in in those dialogues the heracleian axiom you know this idea of of flow flux change and these these these um two contending or opposing sort of temperatures streams of water they have underground sources in the same way that he talks about the rivers of change of of phenomenal causality in in something like the catalus and the theotas. So then you see what's even weirder. He's allotting rulership to his sons the same way that allotment of the nations was given to the gods. It's an inversion.

[00:42:26]It's an inversion. And Poseidon is this sort of generation working demi- urge especially according to to proclas. He's a medial demi urge that that has to do with change flux flow not eternity. Uh and so then you can compare and contrast Plato's words to describe Atlantean society against the more you know austere um uh Athenian people. He right so the the Athenian farmers he describes as like having an eye to beauty but he describes the artisans of Atlantis as wanting to delight themselves. There's a subtle difference. There's a subtle difference there. He uses words like that could translate it as lavish, monumental, magnificent when describing the society of the Atlanteanss. And he's he uses sparse words to describe the austere society. But the main thing going back to the Edenic state and I'll cap it here because this is where it applies to initiation and esoteric orders. you go back and well I also there's a lot that can be said about that whole blood ritual with the mixing bowls as like an inversion of the the the crotter of the demiurge making world soul they're putting bull's blood and anointing themselves and each other with it it's very interesting but if you go back to the Edenic state described in the first half of the text he says that farmers were devoted only to the craft of farming they had an eye to beauty right this is in opposition to what came later or or or or um the the the the demi-urgic or medial demiurgic craft of Poseidon. So the austere and temperate guardians who he says have no need of gold or silver who have no private possessions who hold all things in common are described as leaders leaders of the Greek world. And he says specifically they are willingly followed. There's a clue because this is what he says about the logisticon, the highest part of the soul in that tripart delineation must be willingly followed by the the the the lower two, the spirited and the appetitive. Farmers represent the appetitive, right? Because they're nourishing the body, but they're in their right place. The guardians are at the top. They're at the acropolis.

[00:44:41]The gu the farmers are at the bottom at the slope and and they don't interfere with each other. The farmers choose to be led by the the guardians who are again using that analogy of verticality that that sort of hierarchy. Um >> well because they can see and recognize the beauty right in being led right. So this is how you create the harmony is that like you educate your your soul in such a way that that the the the app and the the spirited you know see and recognize have enough wherewithal to be like yeah of course they should lead. um uh because we get what we get to fulfill our function. We get to to be uh an appetite that's geared towards beauty.

[00:45:20]We get to be a spirited element that doesn't just fight for no reason. And so this is this is really interesting when you think about uh this particular text.

[00:45:28]If if Taeus is mirroring the republic with his creation of the soul uh demiurge and kora so that you need both the demiuric and the koratic uh that you can't just have reason without necessity and necessity without reason. Um uh you can't have uh the kind of bastard uh moving flowing uh feminine uh arcade uh by herself. Nor can you have the demiuric uh logical uh always uh putting things together. You have to have the two to make the the world soul, right? H you need both the feminine and the masculine. And in the republic you have to have both feminine and masculine rulers soul. And so here when we come to uh Critius's story this agrarian more idealic Athens right is is is like the city of pigs uh that Glalcon is like no that's too simple uh everything is met and everything and so Socrates says okay you want a feverish city then uh and then the whole of the republic is bringing that feverish city um back into concord uh with being a calipoolis and so that here now we see Athens is that city of pigs in this particular text and Atlantis, right? It was the perfect city uh or is the perfect city that needs to be purified of its fever of its of its having gone to extremes. And so again, this is a beautiful text that does that work of the indefinite diet of the the greater that could always be greater and the lesser that can always be lesser. Um and so that we internalize this right this extremes of too simple, too idilic and then too out there uh too crazy and so that we marry these two cities and see that there is a mean right within ourselves that can be both uh tending towards the Atlantan right this divine part of ourselves. So proclas and the neoplatonist would say look one of the reasons why we um make mistakes when it comes to virtue. It's not because we are bad or horrible. No it's because of the reasoning principles in our soul the divine aspects in our soul that make us be ambitious or overzealous or attracted to gold and things like this because it it appears that is like those things. So our our tendency to become excessive or atlantean is actually because of the divine part of our soul, but we're cut off from it, right? We don't have a perfect picture of it like the twins.

[00:47:47]They're cut off uh or at least that's what I would argue is going to happen is they're cut off from their divine part, but they can still sense their other half. They can still feel it. Uh and so we reach for it. And so we have to learn to measure it. but also just to become the agrarian idea like yeah that's going to be a nice city of pigs life but you're not actually doing that much to connect to heal um or be joined to your uh more than mortal half. So if you want to just be human that's yeah that's the perfect way of life. Uh but you know maybe there's more than just the Athenian um idealic state >> that that comes right out of what Danny just said. Um, so we've got these tendencies that um are not intrinsically bad, but they're expressed poorly and they lead us into a life that's not virtuous. Um, you could see this all over in Plato. Alsite seems like the perfect example of some guy who has these great ideas, but he just doesn't know how to implement them and and he he becomes grandiose and so on.

[00:48:49]Where in this in this text say in the critus or how it relates to the teas or the republic what is the way to address that? Does Plato give us a way to bring us back into tune through these texts? Um because he's he stops the critius where he stops it and it might make us think well what the hell what should we do?

[00:49:12]And and Plato might be saying well I've already told you what to do just go back and look at the republic. look at the tameas and and apply it to yourselves and see what in you is like the Atlanteans who have lost it and how can you bring yourself back. Um but but that requires a lot of I mean I loved what you were saying uh Ike about how Atlantis as described in the Critous is sort of like an inverted mirror of the cosmology of the Tmus with all its rings and its planets and all that and and so he's got these rings right here on the earth and so he's sort of made it an invert inverted mirror of the divine world in this world and it works out for a while until they blow it. So they're sort of living a cosmog cosmogonic society until they fall out of it, fall out of tune.

[00:50:11]Um, >> yeah.

[00:50:13]>> I I wish uh do either of you have some sort of sense of of where the text show us how we fall out of tune or maybe falling out of tune is inevitable and and not to be resisted and just accepted and worked through that. It's a part of like breathing. It's like saying, okay, how are you going to avoid breathing out? You know, it's part of the process.

[00:50:35]falling out of tune might be part of the, you know, being in tune.

[00:50:43]>> That's makes it animated, right? Like Socrates has asked for uh put in motion, right? Uh in a state of war, put by Calipolis in a state of war uh in motion is what he's asked and Cus and Hermocrates who whose uh texts we never um uh see. But the the point is is that no I mean like to go back to Ike's um point about allotments right that that here the the gods Poseidon has been allotted right his place they don't war for them so you know pushing back against heated and Homer uh with regards to how gods establish uh um their regions no this was by a lotment and persuasion and so it hearkens to this myth of right where you know the the fates and the sirens and they've given us this chance is all like we get to pick our lives but we have to discern correctly we are allotted and so I mean so there's a illusion here to that the gods have gone through this cycle too right uh Poseidon has been allotted he's picked this particular uh life and so that ultimately yes it's this is the living this is what happened when Poseidon was alive he fell in love with Cleo Cleo and established this region and then eventually his people um his race uh yeah starts to forget the the origin story uh from a divine fair a lotment but that doesn't we have Zeus come back and it's going to put things back in right order uh in some such way if we can see the connections uh between this text and another text and another text and then also to be able to listen to somebody today like I I think about my mother who who believed in Atlantis uh and to you know, be able to see that there's still some wisdom in in that, right? Because it hearkens to a story that must have helped a lot of people uh and yeah, in that in this crazy world um that uh were >> and and another thing in terms of context for people who aren't aware, Plato was living in in a in in a time where Athens was much more like Atlantis, right? at the time of the of the tyrants and all of this sort of and many of which were his as as at least you know we get from the seventh letter many of which were his relatives and he walked away from that so I think part of it is him trying to instinct right uh the modern sort of um time that is tending towards inmperence they they've not yet you know uh descended to to abject chaos uh and ruin and he's but he he kind of alludes to that by saying like look the Atlanteanss could handle this for a little a while, but then eventually, you know, this worldly desires left left to to kind of satisfy and gratify their own ends are going to pull us down. And I think one of the ways that he's doing is he's trying to hearken to the past to to to sort of u um blend uh or at least bring to consciousness um what was or at least you know in a in a mythological way to to the inmperance and and sort of the chaos or or tyranny of um of the Athens he was living in. Now the what's really interesting to me is center center. this focusing on the center. There's so many different points in this mythology where he's saying the center and he's calling, you know, that that that mound of Cleto.

[00:54:06]What is that, right? when he when he assigns it, right? It has a gold wall and it's it's the the the the nuptual point or the the the um the point of generation where Poseidon and Cleto marry or or or you know copulate with one another and create the twins and then it Atlas gets it's the best part of the it's the choice pick choice cut of the whole property. Atlas gets that's yours buddy. You you go and have a great time. Um and then that is the center of the world. Uh and it's interesting because Atlas right being Telmon Atlas kind of the similarity in in the name there kind of there's this idea of of axis mundi which we also get from uh in the the the spindle of anag in um in something like the myth of but the main point there is that we end we end this text with Plato saying he c Zeus calls the gods together to their abode which is in the center of everything from which they can see all of creation.

[00:55:09]And yet we end there because he doesn't tell us. And then he says dot dot dot look. So it's that's really interesting to me. He's replacing this place of gold, this earthly mound, this um you know nuptual chamber with the gods, all of the gods, you know. And I don't know that he means that in a in in like a strictly, you know, pious observance way so much as I think to your point, Danny, this I don't I don't believe Critius that he means that he means that this is historical. I think that he's continuing the analogy of the governance of the internal polus. And I I think that that that hasn't I don't I haven't figured it out conclusively, but I think that has in some way to do with it bringing the gods back to the center.

[00:56:00]Well, we also have to remember to bring it back into context historia right at the time was not what we consider I think a proclas like you know like for him he was trying to say like he uses the word hysteria you know like uh and we mean by it now something that was factually true but as Aristotle would say you know historical events they're they're not very you know who cares because they're all just a bunch of hodge podge events that don't have any tilos or purpose that combines them. Uh what really matters is that you know we we tell stories that have a beginning, middle and end. Uh so that we can follow them, right? Uh like if you just do history where you're just throwing up this event happened, this person existed da da da da da because that's how we experience it. We don't experience right most the time in our lives a story with a beginning, middle, and end. But history, right, was starting to become an art that crafted the evental nature with a beginning, middle, and end.

[00:56:56]created a drama or a story. And so that when Critia says this is absolutely history, he's just the beginning of a tradition, right? Uh rather than um you know actually like meaning that this is factually true. Uh because as procla says um we don't really care if it's factually true or not. Right? This is a late neoplatonist like what really matters is what it teaches us about being connected to the divine being um yeah what it means to be virtuous and good and true because that's what's really history right that we really do have these capacities uh to become more than just you know uh people enslaved to the tyrant um at the time right um people enslaved to the technofudalists who have all the the money and the goods um and all that fun uh stuff. I would be remiss if I didn't ask what you think both of you think um orium is. Um so here's in this text that they they not only have silver and gold, but they have this very interesting bronze orchilum.

[00:58:02]I'm sorry, it's just one of those strange words like does either of you have any idea what this strange metal is? This this speaks to the uh reception um of um this particular text and myth in the weird uh world of alchemical uh or alchemists. And so I I don't know much there in that world. So I would love to hear >> well so it's uh the the the two words that are smashed together >> on it own but it's a variation of the Latin word.

[00:58:30]>> Sorry.

[00:58:33]>> We can we we can we can go with that. I but I I know that it the two words mean translate uh I think it's oros and kalos or khalis and it means mountain copper.

[00:58:44]Um I don't necessarily know what that is but I would say uh the fact that that that in some way co copper is associated with it. It's it's it's interesting.

[00:58:55]It's interesting certainly from an alchemical uh perspective being a venuian metal which ultimately comes from >> right Greek mythology. Uh uh that's the meaning of the the the word Cyprus, right? Um or at least that's what it's what it was named after later. So I've I've seen it translated as mountain copper, but I don't really know. I don't know what like I I couldn't point to a specific metal and tell you what that was.

[00:59:25]>> Yeah, I know. I I I had in my text mountain copper as well. Uh and then I was like bronze, you know, and then I was like, "Oh, okay. Is this does this correspond to the the the different um uh the noble lie, right? Um uh where we're supposed to be thinking about the various different uh medals, but I don't know.

[00:59:41]>> And what's interesting, too, is he says he says something about when they're in that chamber, I think he says something when and they're sacrificing the bulls, he says that they >> they have all sorts of instruments, but no weapons of iron, which is which is interesting to your point about the possibility of it being bronze.

[01:00:00]question that that kind of relates to to the way that you like to look at this Danny. So you're kind of taking the whole spectrum of as relation to the other dialogues. Ike is more going into more in the symbolic depth of of of of the story itself. But what's provided in a critus that is not provided say in the other dialogues that you've been referring to the symposium or the tus or the republic. What does this provide that they that they don't have? What clue?

[01:00:32]>> Yeah, I I honestly that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to talk to you guys about this particular text uh is because it I don't know. I I really and I love that. I love that there's a uh I mean all the dialogues do this, right? Like the the catalus is another famous example of a text that just seems so anti Plato Plato. Like when we want to think about uh the standard traditional Plato that you get in your classroom, you know, uh the rationalist who really wants you to to just be logical and ordered and uh and to do philosophy and dialectic is just, you know, parsing things out like perminities does. Um, and that sophistry is just protagorist like the catalus uh and licitius and let's see I'm sure I I'll think of another one that uh really kind of smack those kind of scholars in the face and say remember he's weird too, right?

[01:01:26]Remember he's also a mythologist.

[01:01:29]Remember he's also a folk etmologist.

[01:01:31]remember uh that he plays with the the sacred traditions of of puns and secret words and divine names uh and myths that seem to be uh heretical, right? And somehow they're not. Uh so this this should be heretical, right? What he's doing um if you're start starting the you're following the standard uh um stories of the gods. I mean, he even makes uh in this particular text, Athena and Heesus come from the same father.

[01:02:04]That's not right. They like, who's the their same father? Hesus was supposed to be born of Hera and Athena of uh of Zeus, but here we're supposed to be like, well, I guess the demiurge um uh is what makes them united because of the times. And so for me, this text is just a good mimemetic device, if you will, or a device of remembering that Plato was very complex and that to get Plato requires a little bit of magic. And so >> with this difficult task that that Critius has in front of him, it's bringing it into ordinary life, into our world. And that that was sort of the goal from the beginning. H how do you describe what was it when we go to war? Was that um right >> uh which requires an understanding of human nature and how to bring these exalted ideas down into uh activity which is what it requires. And it kind of alludes to this double meaning too potentially in the the opening sort of uh preface of him saying look it's difficult to talk about you know people maybe individuals maybe the human experience um uh in relation to a lot of this stuff but uh I think that's why there's so much recourse to mythologizing rather than speaking directly because um I think it's it's he's giving you all the tools in in the broader you know context of of his work not only in the republic I mean if you okay so after digesting the republic you go back through the alabayis you go back through the gorgias you go back through let's say you know the ambleleian curriculum he's constantly like it doesn't stop he's constantly contrasting uh you know moral or or I would say a crisis of virtue against you know uh his four cardinal virtues. He's constantly saying, you know, they he he he he uh I think invokes in the gorgius or or the alabi archelos, you know, the the the uh tyrannical ruler of of Persian at the time. And and he's talking about, oh, you know, he doesn't have temperance and and and then courage and and and prudence. And he's constantly using those four cardinal virtues to contrast against what is going wrong with this situation. So I think um you know it's it's a another mythological take on uh the govern govern governance of the internal polus. I think personally there's something very interesting to me about the inversion potent the potential of the the inverted myth. Uh because you when you you see stuff in in um you know throughout occultism and I know that's occult symbolism. That's one of the reasons why Danny wanted me to come and and be a part of this discussion. One of one of the things that you see constantly is is the the the demiurgic sort of creative intellect of the divine in an inverted mirror as in like the hexog. You see that in elephus levy's doctrine and ritual of high magic. You know, as as above so below. But the thing is it's not exact. What is below is is an inversion. It's a dark reflection. And to me, I mean, there's something extremely, and this is a dirty word, but I'm going to use it. There's something extremely gnostic about that.

[01:05:39]>> Nice. Wonderful.

[01:05:41]>> I think you're on to something that's pretty significant there, Ike. And uh you you characterize it as kind of gnostic. Um and it strikes me or makes me think that that this is something that um an individual human being in his or her own kind of you could say egocentric self has a way of being able to participate in the highest and most exalted transgoistic state. I mean that's a hell of an inversion from the most non-ego to the most empowered ego. But is that part of what you're talking about? Because I know it sounds kind of creepy. It almost sounds like black magic or something like that, you know, like some big sorcerer. Um but but there's there's an element of that. How do human beings participate in the divine without just becoming vaporous um sort of go along and get along? How do they own it and and embody it and and and act it? And that that can't happen just by passivity.

[01:06:50]>> So is that what you're getting at?

[01:06:52]>> Yeah, I I definitely do. It's I don't think I think what he's telling us here is that it's actually not the natural state of human beings. I think that we come here and there's a potential for it, but the the the I would say the you know the the um the watch word of or or or the the keyword for the realm of generation is uh contention, right?

[01:07:16]constantly the twins, the two two different streams. Yeah, strife is a good term for that too. Um, and that to overcome this contention which is ultimately it's not a product of any flaw of the material universe. It's a product of our perception of it. This whole idea that things are constantly in flux and constantly changing yet we were insisting on finding capital T truth only here in the material. uh you know which was very much a prescratic kind of um preoccupation uh for for for many of of those early na natural philosophers.

[01:07:50]I think what he's pointing to is something that Pythagoras is known to have uh emphasized the Orphic traditions have have known to mythologize um is the descent of the soul into the underworld of materiality and how we can the the whole point I brought up the Edenic state is because we can return to that Edenic state but it's an internal thing. The guardians have to not have any use for gold or silver. That doesn't mean nobody else gets to use it. But the guardian, the highest part of the soul, the logisticon, that which approximates the divine in us, has to rule the roost and it has to be willing because it doesn't follow logically. It's not in the nature of the logisticon to beat something into submission. So it has to be asented it by by the two. Well, look, we're going to do our part. We're going to focus on look I mean William Wincott one of the founders of the Golden Dawn he wrote in one of the flying roles in in one of the first flying roles and this is an introductory teachings to the inner order of the golden dawn in 1892 he wrote the animal man is to be cared for but not petted and essentially what Plato's talking about in in the inmperance that eventually was the downfall of the Atlanteanss is delighting and extravagance and and that kind of stuff why because we're we are enthralled to the illusion of this stuff which brings us further and further towards the rule of flux and change and further away from the stability of the austere guardians who who you know uh lead the Greek world. Um and and so I I think it's it's another way of mythologizing that in line with the time the republic right uh so that I don't think at all at all it's this aestheticism I don't think it's this checking out I think it's a checking in check in with yourself like that's what that that critical ray that you're trying to analyze everything in the exterior world that has to be turned in on yourself and I think it's a powerful message for today you know for people today it's like you all the problems are out here. No, that you've got problems in an interior sort of uh uh perceptual filter issue. I think ultimately that's why I gravitated so much to Platonism. I was reading I was rereading it and going like, "Oh my god, like everything we're dealing with today, he he'd already discussed, you know, he already went through uh uh all of these issues of perceptual kind of confusion." Uh so so I I think that has something to do with it. I, you know, I'm clearly, look around, I like nice things. I like nice food, right? I'm not like this this this uh worlddenying aesthetic. But I certainly think especially with my history as an addict, if I can speak frankly, uh with my history as an addict, I mean, addiction is only one of the most extreme version examples of what the mind is continually doing.

[01:10:46]It's only the >> Say a little bit more out of that.

[01:10:48]Please help help me understand that cuz I I think you're on to something there.

[01:10:52]So that the addiction reveals something that's intrinsic to who we are.

[01:10:57]>> Yes. and and I you know addicts are just people who uh decide to take that ride and and and lose a sense of interior groundedness and self-preservation in a lot that that is ultimately the font right the font of self-preservation is the interior groundedness is knowing having that strong connection to the logisticon and um >> the the the what drives the addiction though is a desire for a kind of intensity of experience, right?

[01:11:33]>> Am I right about that?

[01:11:34]>> I think at first I think at first the thrillseeking is is how you get hooked.

[01:11:40]But addiction itself when persisted in, right? Because we call it a temporary lapse in insan. It's temporary insanity is a preference for the lie over the truth.

[01:11:53]>> I I appreciate what you're saying, but it sounds so abstract. That's not that's not the language of the addict. They they don't think >> the addict says, "I want to check out. I don't want to feel this pain. I don't want to have to I don't want to feel the burden of responsibility. Uh I want to lay here and take this drug and I want to want the drug to make me feel good and I don't want to have to do anything." Um that's a lie.

[01:12:13]>> But but what if I go back to what Danny was talking about earlier, this impulse to bring I call it pleasure if you want or a release from pain in itself is not bad. It's it's how we manage it that that that's the the question. So you can recognize that there's no difference between the addict and me. It's just how they manage the their um impulse to that experience.

[01:12:38]>> Well, yeah. I mean, the legit what we would consider the highest part of the soul has no say in in the actions of the addict. It's it's not it's not I mean there have been I'll put it this way.

[01:12:48]There have been times where I was, and I'm getting very frank, very real, but it's, you know, whatever. You can edit out whatever you don't like, but uh it, you know, it's there have been times when I'm sitting there doing about to do something I know I shouldn't do. And an inner voice in me is screaming, "Do not do this. Do not do this. You haven't done it yet. You can you can turn this around." And there's a part of me that just says, "No." And I think that there is right this whole architecture or this analogy of the relationship between those competing those contending voices in us is what what Plato is trying to in some way draw us uh to look at. I mean because you know and you say well that's that's a modern kind of psychological interpretation. Yeah. But go back to the theotus go back to the epistemological tetrred where he's talking about philosophical midwifery. I mean that's protocsychyology. you know, that's an early form of what would become psychological doctrine to people like Freud and Young and so on and so forth.

[01:13:49]So, I think that there is a >> there's a reason why Freud has the theories that he has. It's based on deep reading of Republic and Plato and um so he like psychology is born from this these kind of initial um uh investigations. And what you're talking to, right, is is this this again we're going back to these three parts of the soul and you know the epitheos uh and we satisfy it and we have this agrarian city but that's that's as glimp.

[01:14:18]That's a city of pigs, right? That's that's too idealic, right? Like and so there there's a glacially in the attic, right? It's like ah that's just too simple. I want the more then.

[01:14:29]Uh and then Socrates is like okay you're my friend. So again, modeling that you can be friends with people you disagree with. You can be friends with that part of your soul that wants more. Right. To go back to your um Gnostic uh what you said here, you know, like lots of Gnostics think that nosticism is just intuition all by itself. Um, but I would argue like one of the things that that makes this text so awesome is that it's peppered with all the of these moments of there being seeds or small things and details that are passed on or important.

[01:15:07]Uh, that you need both the odd and the even. You need these small things, these little legumes that's all throughout. I mean, he mentions these seeds that you got to find these small things. And that's when you pick up on them, you're gaining the breadcrumbs, so to speak, to make that thread, as Greg saw, uh that exists between um your your stomach, your your desire for pleasure and the more than to produce and and connecting them. And so that the real gnostic is one who knows that it's not just knowing for no reason, right? But it's it's I've studied this text a thousand times. I've studied the Republic a thousand times and I've now I can see the little seeds um that are there. Uh and and so for me those epiphies um don't come from nowhere. Um they they come and so I think unfortunately narcissism has gotten the bad rap of we just know um because we read one or two mystical texts uh and I'm saying I'm sorry. uh just because you know who Herman's shistic is, it doesn't mean that you've actually been initiated in any some uh any way. Rather, there's a discipline that requires because one of the things that's happening in the Taeus and in this text is this is the soul in war in strife animated. And so really what we're learning about is not the logisticon nor the epitheos. We're learning about what connects the two of them. The warriors, the heart, the spirit, the passion to study something that looks so silly and obscure. Uh but you committed yourself to marrying the addict with the overinker. Um uh and that you are passionate enough to be right and true and just uh about that and to protect it and defend it. Um and so that I would argue the tameus and the uh critus are texts about different ways we can fashion the warrior. Um we'll make lies, we'll make myths, we'll make podcast um uh in order to protect the value um of the the stamp or the s seal or the measure between the thinking thing and the desiring thing. And so but that's just my hot take. Um, so I don't know how you guys respond.

[01:17:22]>> I'm wondering if Greg has any thoughts or you're muted, Greg, by the way. Um, I wonder if Greg has any thoughts on or intuitions on on this addict sort of addiction connection.

[01:17:34]>> Oh, well that's interesting. I, you know, I think that uh I just want to say that um this is a whole lot more interesting of a meeting about Critius than I thought it would be because when I read Critius, I thought I don't know what am I going to do with this, you know? I mean, what I I just I didn't really have much enthusiasm for the Critius when I read it. Um, but listening to uh you guys talking about what you're getting out of it, I'm really fascinated and I and I really find this connection to the other dialogues really interesting. A couple of the themes that have come up that I'm interested in in knowing more about is the soul in war that strife contention um is a necessary part of of what we are called upon to do in our discipline u to bring this um this cosmogy that's described in the tmus this perfect place into a lived reality that contention cannot be escaped. can't just dream your way into it with kumbaya songs and everybody being nice to everybody else.

[01:18:39]It's hard. And um as far as addiction goes, I think that um you know, I'm not sure I I'm I quite understand my own uh tendencies towards addiction. Um let's let's think about um like when people take psychedelics for example and suddenly they have an experience of what they you know they never knew before and they suddenly realize that there's no difference between them and the universe and they realize that they are the universe. Why shouldn't they think of that as a kind of nosis? But the question is how do you how do you live that you know how do you implement that? How do you uh recognize how it can be received and then how it can be dropped? I mean if it's a gift it's almost guaranteed to be for fall uh you know fall out of our hands unless we do some training. And and that's where reading these Platonic dialogues helps because he he shows you ways in which this kind of experience can be contained, you could say, um, and not lost. And, um, that's what's interesting about Plato is that I don't know how I'm just in awe of of of this material really, to be honest. Um and this notion of strife which is one of Impeticles's um there's strife and aeros um we always tend to think oh everything aeros is a good thing and strife is bad but strife is absolutely necessary you know for our waking up you could say and if we're just in this erotic sort of like oh let's be happy let's be uh like Donovan song way down below the ocean where I want to you know, um, Atlantis and all that stuff. Um, it doesn't work. You know, I don't know how much experience you've had with I don't think new age people are bad, but um, how would I put this? They bore the hell out of me, you know, with all their pleasantness and happiness and love. I mean, it just it doesn't have enough grit. It doesn't have enough I I I don't agree with you or I think you're wrong or that guy's really off. You're not allowed to say that in these wonderful uh attempts to bring this vision into real life. Everybody thinks that the way to do it is to be nice to everybody and the strife in the war is the only way to bring it out. And um I don't know. I guess I'm kind of confusing it. I mean, I like for people to have good manners.

[01:21:36]Yes, that's good. But how to have really serious crit critique of another person idea and still be polite is a real arc.

[01:21:47]And I don't know that we've really learned that very well.

[01:21:51]>> That that is the dialectic. You know, we like like look for instance, I think people take things people are afraid of contention because they think it has to be knock down drag out or I'm embarrassed. People are afraid to seem foolish, afraid to be wrong, especially nowadays. And you look at something like the Gorgius where Calacles is like sort of lashing back out at Socrates and the whole time Socrates tell them, "Listen, no, you're taking this personally.

[01:22:16]You're taking this personally. You're getting upset with me because you're taking it personally." And what I'm trying to do is is work with you. And that's the whole that's the difference between sophistry and what they do in the dialectic is one is collaborative, the other one is contentious, purely contentious. It's a competition.

[01:22:33]Somebody needs to win. Uh, and I think a lot of people that are invested in this idea of like, you know, just be cool, man. You know, it's it's they they are afraid of of having uh that confrontation when, you know, if you look at the dialogues, it can happen. It can happen. And I mean, even in sporting events, you know, there's there's this idea of sportsmanship where if you box or you play tennis or something, you lose, you go and you shake that guy's hand or that that girl's that woman's hand at the end of the match. And and this is I mean I think that's just part of self-development, you know, that to be able to do that. Uh so yeah, I that's I mean that that has very I guess very little to do with Platonism, but that's my take on on being around a lot of that.

[01:23:23]No, for me.

[01:23:24]>> No, I was just gonna say I don't think it doesn't have to do with platonism. I think it has very much to do with it.

[01:23:30]>> Go ahead, Danny.

[01:23:33]>> Yeah. No, because he's always making that distinction between um aristic um discussions say in the Mino uh versus uh yeah friendlier discussions like so if if I was in a competition this wouldn't work, but uh here we're we're having a friendly discussion. Uh and again I you know my read of the republic where the entire rules for war and how that works is in order to show this is what a proper dialect would look like. You don't you don't you don't just leave people's bodies, right? You don't you don't argue ad homonym basically. You don't you don't you don't you know uh raise and and burn and you know you you you maintain a sense of decorum. Um at least that's what I uh read into all the rules for war in uh the republic. It's teaching us how can you have arguments and disagreements in some way that doesn't actually mean that you destroy the other person rather you take from them you learn from them uh even when they are wrong I mean that's what Socrates so I wrote my entire uh dissertation in my 20s uh because I wanted to read Socrates as sincerely saying compliments to these so-called sophists because I wanted to believe that it it's not just being ironic that that that that Socrates actually sincerely sees, oh, you simicus that this is I'm really trying to learn from you, man. Um uh and yeah, you you are a dog or you are uh you know, calling me names, but I'm I'm not going to I'm going to still tell you a story. And so that by the time Thimicus comes back in in book six, like they've become friends like because Thmicus sees that, oh, I get it. um uh this is what philosophy is as opposed to what I've been practicing um most of my life which is the competition where I have to slaughter the other uh take them down a peg rather than just point out what you're confused about right and what you wish you understood better um so I have taken up a lot of y'all's time so I I figured I could close uh with the last >> paragraph what what was your thesis did it have a title yeah when you wrote about pieces.

[01:25:40]>> Uh yeah, it was called Yeah. double ignorance, an examination of >> about double ignorance. So maybe some of it was put into that.

[01:25:48]>> Yeah, >> probably. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was my attempt to to solve the paradox of how Socrates can admit ignorance uh while saying ignorance is the the worst thing in the world. Um and so I was like figure this one out. So I enjoyed reading that. Yeah. Okay. So >> not I'm sorry to interrupt. How did you want to bring this to a close?

[01:26:10]>> So I thought um I just read the last paragraph. I think it speaks to everything that we have said about uh internalization embodiment. Uh yeah and how all of these myths in some such way uh reflect the human condition. uh and this kind of slip into uh the kind of discordinate um way of being in the world caused by as we'll hear. Um all right. Uh where did it go? Where'd it go? Um all right. As a as a result then of such uh reasoning and the continuence of their divine nature, all their wealth had grown to such a greatness as we uh previously described. But when the portion of divinity within them was now becoming faint and weak because being oftentimes blended with a large measure of mortality whereas the humans temper the human temper was becoming dominant.

[01:27:05]Uh then at length they lost their comeliness through being unable to hear the burden of their possessions and became ugly to look upon in the eyes of him who has the gift of sight. for they had lost the fairest of their goods from the most uh precious of their parts. But in the eyes of those who have no gift of perceiving what is the truly happy life, it was then above all that they appeared to be super superbly fair and blessed, filled as they were with ambition and power. And Zeus, the god of uh gods, who reigns uh by law, uh in as much as he has the gift of preceding each thing, marked how their righteous race uh was an evil plight, and desired to inflict punishment upon them. To the end to that end uh when chastised, they might strike a truer note. Wherefore he assembled together all the gods into the abodess uh which they uh honor most standing as it does at the center of the universe and beholding all things that partake of generation. And when he had assembled then he spoke dot dot dot. So again, just this idea that when we blend uh our origins with this mortal, this thing that's going to die uh with just the simple or the agrarian, we are slowly but surely um uh getting rid of the divine uh portion that makes us go beyond um uh that mortal idilic uh everything's perfect uh life. But of course, as we've been noting, it's going to require a bit of strife um to uh get back that uh divine uh portion >> the conclusion to this dialogue.

[01:28:49]>> I want all of us to write the conclusion to this.

[01:28:54]>> It would I think so too.

[01:28:55]>> No, thanks guys bringing this uh event up and I've enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you.

[01:29:02]>> Same. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Dear di tell me why do the things that are beautiful always have a darker side? Oh dear.

[01:29:16]Tell me cuz I could