Christianity did not emerge in isolation but was deeply shaped by Platonic philosophy, which provided the conceptual framework for understanding God, the soul, angels, demons, and the invisible structure of reality. Early Christians inherited and transformed key Platonic concepts including the visible world reflecting invisible realities, the soul's journey toward divine union, and the hierarchical structure of being. This influence is evident in Christian mysticism, the Logos concept, the Trinity's triune structure, and the tradition of contemplative ascent toward the divine.
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Christ, Plato, and the Ladder of Light: Danielle A. Layne on Platonism in Christianity
Added:Welcome back to the occult rejects.
Today we are stepping back into one of the deepest currents running underneath Christian theology. Christian mysticism in the entire western religious imagination. That's platonism. A lot of people are taught to think of Christianity as as if it appeared in history completely sealed off from the philosophical world around it. as if the church fathers were only reading scriptures in a vacuum, untouched by Greek metaphysics, untouched by Plato, untouched by ideas about the soul, divine light, visible forms, cosmic hierarchy, contemplation, purification, and ascent. But Christianity did not emerge in a vacuum. It was born into a world already saturated with philosophy, mystery, traditions, henistic religion, Jewish interpretation, Roman power, and the long shadow of Plato. So one of the biggest questions is not whether platonism influenced Christianity but how deeply it shaped the way Christians came to speak about God, the soul, angels, demons, heaven, salvation, prayer, beauty, the body, and the invisible structure behind the invisible world. And to help us walk into that world, we have a returning guest to the occult rejects. We have Danielle Lane.
Danielle is a professor of philosophy at Gonzaga University and her work focuses on Plato, the later platonic tradition, proclient her oh my god, I'm [ __ ] this word up.
>> Hermeneutics.
>> Yes. Oh my god. [laughter] Thank you.
Mysticism, mythology, prayer, and the way Pltonism has often been misunderstood as a simple rejection of the body and the sensible world. That is one of the reasons I'm excited to have her back on because this conversation is not just about Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy influencing Christianity in some flat academic way. It is about the architectural reality that early Christians inherited, argued with, transformed, baptized, and sometimes tried to deny while still using its language.
>> It is about the visible world reflecting invisible realities. The soul remembering what it truly is. Beauty acting almost like a wound from the divine. philosophy becoming purification, prayer becoming ascent and the human being standing somewhere between animal, angel and God. So today we are going to ask what Christianity took from Plato the plaintist and what it changed what it rejected and what it could never fully escape. We're going to talk about the church fathers, the logos, the soul, the body, divine names, contemplation, prayer, mysticism, neoplatanism, theogy, and why so much of the Christian theology still sounds like it's climbing a ladder out of the cave and toward the light. And now that's enough out of me and I will introduce the guest. Uh we also do have Magus uh joining us at some point, so eventually we'll have him joining us. But uh here is the guest. Danielle, please let everybody know who may not have caught the last episode that you were on who you are and uh what your deal is and anything you want to promote.
>> Yeah. So, uh I you cut out just a little bit at the end, so I'm not sure what the last thing you said was. Uh but I believe uh I can introduce myself as a platonist. I'm a scholar in Pltonism. Uh but I'm also a card carrying uh Plonist myself. Um I uh don't believe in the you know uh academic two- world uh standard platonism. Um I don't believe that's in the text. Um there's more to it uh than that. And hopefully through this conversation uh we'll be able to see what that is. Uh but it makes me very amenable to also seeing the beauty uh and some of the the features within Christianity uh that I would say scream uh platonism. Uh and so one of the things about platonism is that it is not a dogmatic um form of scholarship or a form of uh of life. Uh that part of what it means to be a platonist is to see that flame or that fire or that spirit of the more than um of the beyond being if you will of the good uh that lights up a room or a soul or a community or uh a time period. And to know that that is what we have to be reaching for and that that means no matter what we have to do, we have to constantly recreate it, right? Uh and see it again. And so merely copying what somebody else said uh would not be true platonism. True platinism is to become demi-urgic and creative and to know that you have to be like nature and transform the way we speak about that spark of the more than the way that we create. And so Christianity can be part of that particular tradition. Uh somebody like uh CS Lewis did this with the Chronicles of Narnia. No knew not to just be dogmatic about telling the story of the Christ god but to create and make uh a lion and a wardrobe and a world of children uh who knew that they had to overcome evil uh not necessarily by killing it but by loving it. Um, and so these are the kind the threads that are part and parcel of the kind of creativity that comes when you understand that you're part of a tradition of not staying the same, not being dogmatic. And so this is why platonism has influenced so many different other traditions and ways of life.
>> That is awesome. Thank you. That was an amazing introduction there. [laughter] I appreciate it.
>> Um, did you want to just real quick too, did you want to promote your productions thing?
>> Yeah. No, I am the CEO of Palad Productions. Uh what we're all about is making uh art and media and philosophical material that remind human beings that you don't have to uh have been an academic to fall into the rabbit hole of the beauty of philosophy, the wisdom of the arts. Uh and so we're looking for more people uh to join us in this journey of creating uh all sorts of content that allows people to both online uh interact with the wisdom of their soul. Uh remain curious about how uh you do that kind of work. Uh also to create communities in the brickandmortar spaces of your very own communities. Uh and then finally we also have the Kora platform which is our flagship project uh which is a social media and search engine done otherwise mostly for philosophy when you are uh up in the middle of the night uh and wondering what the meaning of life is uh you can type into Kora rather than some other search that you'll have to spend hours going through page after page after page to get anything uh relevant or not pop psychology. Uh right now she's mostly a database, but uh again we're expanding and we're going to slowly start to roll out the social media features of the platform so that you can get involved and hang out with philosophers.
>> That is awesome. Yeah, I know. I saw uh you know we're talking about it prior to the show. I sure I got a lot of fans that are fans of Pety Newman. I know you did something with him recently. So I suggest people to go check that out. Uh he's quite a favorite on the show. PD was my mate.
>> No, he's one of my favorite guests, too.
No.
>> Yeah, he's great. He's a smart dude, man. For real.
>> Um, so yeah, we wanted to get into uh I guess the, you know, how Christianity was kind of, I guess, influential.
There's Platonism behind it. Um, one thing I did want to ask though, uh, it's something I I feel bad that I'm asking it now because it's probably better off later on down the road, but I'm going to forget and I'm going to get mad that I forgot because I didn't write it down as a question, but it's something I've been thinking about. And I do know I think there's like a few people in that list.
when I started looking at um people that might have been responsible or kind of like were influenced by platonism that had a a mouth in the church or people listened to him were you know I know like all right with um Plotinus he was not a fan of gnostics or wasn't a fan of gnosticism [snorts] >> so when I noticed that there are some plaintists that kind of have a voice in the in the church as Christianity is getting formed do you think some of the platonists were knocking some of the gnostic sex just because they didn't like them. They don't, you know what I'm saying? They just don't get intonosticism.
>> Oh, no. It's it's the it's the world view, right? So one of the things that I'm always telling students is that you have to look at people's cosmology, you know, their origin story about uh the whole of creation about uh the birth of the human being because it says a lot about uh yeah whether or not you're pessimistic or optimistic with regards to this project of being human and you know looking at the nostics right they do two things that kind of there's many things that Patinus has acts to grind with with regards to the gnostics. Uh but mostly it is this seeing this world as something you know evil and problematic and uh and also the role of nosis as just this immediate knowing right versus no there's a discipline uh and that's because there is something beautiful right that there is something we need to recognize about this being a this world being a causally connected to the one right something beyond being something more than uh and so the the lore of the Gnostics, right? Um, that's the problem is that no, you have to begin with with a a hope uh and and an understanding of uh the value of this world uh and the value of beauty. Uh and so their conception of the demiurge would have also been uh problematic. um this ignorant uh kind of deity like no like no the this world is is too chocked full of uh reason and uh yeah all the signs that point us to the you know the exacting nature of um emanation and reality and so that they are everything this would be a later plaintist who would say this everything has a divine signature uh in it and so >> [clears throat] >> um and that's part of the project of being human is to look and understand and to build uh an understanding of those signs and signatures and all things uh because creation is good and rational. Um and again, you know, the plaintist wouldn't call it creation u but they would call it, you know, this sensible uh reality.
And so I'm already getting into the language of the Christians. So >> no, no, you're good. You're good. No, I just know that um I could be wrong about origin, but I know like uh Justin Martyr, I mean, he had my opinion from covering the history of Christianity.
That guy had a big mouth about saying what the gnostics were doing wrong and he was a platonist. [laughter] I was wondering if there was like a little bit of like I don't like thatnosticism because of the platonism.
You know what I'm saying?
>> I mean to bring it to Christianity there were Christians who didn't like gnostics even though gnostics >> yeah I get that >> forms of Christianity right? Uh and most of it was because they >> they were sideststepping the Greek pidea or not necessarily Greek pidea but the the importance of no there's a wisdom to this. there's there's an activity there's work there they like I you know despite uh my grievances with academia uh and the world of university life I believe in the intellectual tradition right I think that there's something beautiful to it and even if I don't agree with people that are in the same tradition right u so your origin right he was you know like likely a the student of platinus so just so you know I've got many colleagues that would argue uh that the two origins are actually just one origin h and that origin he is he's grappling with the fact that Christianity does not yet have a scaffolding right or doesn't have the exeetical tools that the platonist or the trai the Greek traditions uh foster this activity of knowing how to read a text like the song of songs and to give it you know that backbone of allegorization um giving it more meaning than just the literal meaning and this is a this is an activity. This is um a work that Christians started doing um as they started to take the tools uh of Plleonist slash um those who were part of the intellectual traditions. And keep in mind just like with Christianity, the end isn't understanding for a Platonist or many of the other uh Greek traditions. It is to go beyond that to homo theosis right uh to becoming like a god or unity with the god uh henosis or theopanny right which is another thing that people like uh bonaventure or origin um are all that's what they're that's the end goal is this theophenic uh vision or reunion or as origin this gets it with the song of songs is this romantic uh um bridal chamber uh you get to you know get to know what's inside uh the private place [laughter] um uh of the divine because you are a bride of Christ. And so and this is also part and parcel of the platonic and orphic uh kind of conception uh of what it is to go beyond thinking, understanding, so on and so forth. You it's going to be a little sexy uh a little poetic uh a little bit more uh than just giving a reasoned account. So >> awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Um, the next question I have, uh, kind of how I was going to start it off before I asked that. When Christianity, when Christianity begins spreading through like the Greek speaking world, >> was like Planism already there or did the ideas kind of uh, eventually start like creeping in? Was like the influence there a little bit? So the influence on the original Christianity was Planism already kind of in the the >> Yeah, it was already there to begin with or did it kind of eventually get kind of crept in or >> Oh, no. I mean like the the whole story of uh that we see in the Gospels um uh of the narrative of Christ uh and the Galilean God. Uh yeah. No, it a lot of people aren't aware. So people, a lot of people think that the story of the Christ god uh just comes miraculously and people just fell out of the sky.
Right.
>> Yeah. Like [laughter] and it's like no no first off uh um >> it was a battle. It was like a battle over all that stuff really. Everybody arguing.
>> Oh yeah. like that like even which gospels we have right is all about you know does this fit within a reasoned account uh of what we think uh faith and faith seeking understanding that a later kind of uh a coin term uh no it it was all in dialogue with these intellectual traditions which were dominated by uh platonism at the time uh and so of course like even the decisions of which gospels and which gospels are make sense and are rational and are the true ones these are all through various different uh disciplines within the philosophical tradition that would makes people feel as if they can ah this is this is the true text because I've done a certain exugesus on this uh and we see that this is not uh we don't have to take this one literally but this one still makes sense uh within our canon but no even within the that cannon broadly construed before they they set it down uh the story of the Christ god would have been unrecognizable as a story of divinity if it wasn't already for the tradition that was in place for people to recognize the birth of gods, right? Uh so, you know, just saying, you know, Christ uh was born of a virgin, that is a long Mediterranean tradition dating hundreds of years before uh Jesus Christ was ever born, right? that there were cults called uh that housed parthono or uh virgin priestesses and they were [clears throat] all over uh the Mediterranean world. And you knew right that these cults of virgin priestesses whether they be to Artemis or Diana or uh Athena that these these these women could birth god they they they they had a way to have parthonogenic um uh miracles, right? So either there were rituals where a man a mortal man would substitute and act like um or take on and be the vessel uh for uh a deity and then impregnate one of these parthon or mythologically these women would just suddenly become pregnant uh with Zeus's baby or uh with Dianisis's baby. Uh so all these myths of women um who get impregnated by gods were part of these cultic traditional practices. So that when people heard that you were born of a parthononoid, right? Um uh one of these virgin priestesses, then it was like, okay, this is gonna be Hector, not Hector, this is going to be Achilles. Uh this is going to be uh Hercules. Uh and so that when uh Christians appeal to the virgin birth uh of Jesus, they were saying, "Hey, hey, we we got one. We got one of those parthonoi. Um uh so recognize this guy uh as a deity." And so like little things like this right um also you know just like you think about you know give unto Caesar what is Caesars's this is a basic platonic you know reject the material world of money and ambition like go ahead give them all that stuff give them that coin right uh deface the currency uh as a psych would say h and then live the kind of life right that knows that you are not of this world you are in in this world but you're not of it right uh I you're not mired in the in the dirt as a platonist Allah the fadris might say. Uh and so yeah >> I had no idea about those cults.
>> What are the what were they called again? What did you call them exactly?
>> Parthonoi. Yeah. So there are [clears throat] various various different ones depending on which um uh goddess. And so, uh, for instance, uh, lots of people know that the Greeks exposed, um, babies sometimes, uh, which means if they couldn't afford, uh, a child or if they had a prophetic omen in the case of, uh, Edipus, uh, that your kid was going to kill you, you would have somebody take that baby and put it in the woods. And there's research out there that says those babies were often taken in by parthanoi or in the case of uh you know little bears uh in the case of uh Artemis right uh that a bear uh would come and rescue your kid and raise it uh or a wolf in the case of Romulus and Remulus uh and that that's part of the myth of these cultic priestess women who would associate their divinity their cult divinity with certain types of animals. Uh so that we hear in myth, you know, that uh um what is her name? Uh Atlanta uh was raised by a bear, right?
Uh and so she became a very good hunter and warrior, which was part and parcel of the uh the cult of Artemis. And so >> Wow. teaching me all new stuff I've never heard before. This is Thank you. I appreciate that.
>> No, that's fun talking about. So >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um All right. So, uh, do you think, well, who do you, um, you maybe we can go over some of the people that you think might have been kind of responsible for trying to, I guess, incorporate the these ideas from Platonism.
>> Oh goodness, there's so many. Uh, yeah, I know.
>> We've mentioned origin. Um, but, you know, so if you really >> whoever you think is most impactful, so you don't have to go crazy trying to >> Oh, no. I mean I I think the most impactful platonist uh actually on the history of Christianity is proclas right uh a neopatonic philosopher of the fifth century uh who wrote the elements of theology uh commentaries on many platonic dialogues uh his understanding um in the elements of theology we get this kind of very exacting understanding of the nature of causality you know beginning with the one beyond uh being. But this also this idea that uh the cause is superior to the effects but also the importance of various different hierarchies of being um hierarchies of activity of procession and return of the nature of the immortal soul all of this and I'm of the belief right that a text by uh that's um called the divine names written by pseudo dianus uh is a text that comes uh out of the procline school, right? Somebody very informed uh by proclas's version uh of platonism, perhaps even a direct student. Um I mean, I'm kind of the I I I I'll go out on a limb here because I'm on a cult, right? Uh and I I I like to think of the the divine names and the text of pseudoius.
um that that really pagans had known that they needed to go into hiding and they needed to keep this wisdom alive. Like like I said at the beginning uh of our talk that pay like the plaintist the concern is not to be dogmatic. It's to keep the tradition that keeps the human spirit that to that desires the more then not just the mundane everyday life um the the coin of Caesar but no the something more and fine we'll we'll we'll put it in these Christian texts or put it in Christian uh language because it's better for it to survive than disappear from this world entirely. And so that's my go around at a limb is that that pseudotion was in fact a platonist um that was fine with doing the syncric work uh of adapting uh the wisdom of platonism into uh Christian ideology uh and Christian faith. Uh so Pseudo Dianius uh very much a platonizing uh Christian. Um you got Urugua, another amazing um uh late uh um ancient uh early medieval uh author. Um uh goodness um Anselon is a kind of >> Say again.
>> I was gonna ask you about Maximus. I did have him down. I had Maximus.
>> Maximus. I haven't I haven't gone down the rabbit hole yet. Maximus. There's something uh I Marius Victorinus I know also as a plaintist but these are authors that I haven't yet um found myself going oh um and so uh but one day I hope to put now that you've asked my soul will probably be compelled um but uh there's also where my oh even Aquinus is uh plate >> really Thomas Aquinus was >> oh yeah want to know why [laughter] >> yeah yeah just want to make sure I steam roll things. Uh, no.
>> So, no, Thomas Aquinus is very much an arisatilian. Why? Because, you know, the Plato's texts aren't really around. But, first off, Aristotle is a kind of Platonist. Um, uh, a form of Pltonism.
Uh, rejects parts of Plato particularly, but that does not mean that you aren't a Platonist. You're just part of that tradition of that back and forth. uh friends are what uh really matters at friendship but you know truth matters more and so Aristotle knows that that's the same commitment that any good uh god-fearing platonist um uh would uh so often uh also be like but also he Thomas Aquinus is the person who discovered um or first noted that the the text of Dianius were pseudo Dianius uh he's reading it and as I just said uh it's highly platonizing Um, also there is the uh theology of Aristotle, another platonizing uh text that he's highly influenced by uh because he thinks it's Arisatilian, but it's it's not. Uh it's a conglomeration of a variety of different um platonic arisatilian um yeah, it's a it's a it's a hedge a hodgepodge. That's the word I'm looking for. Uh and then here if we want to say that platonism is just philosophy even the way that he writes right in that same like question answer question answer mirrors the kind of disciplinary activity of what platonist did within the academy and elsewhere when it comes to how do we properly think about the nature of God reality soul angels so on and so forth and Yeah. No, that definitely rang a bell as soon as you said the question to answer, question and answer. Yeah, that's totally like >> But then of course the biggest influence um uh that platonism and Christianity I believe is the Renaissance, right? You got your finos, you got your Bacellis, uh you've got uh all these amazing um Renaissance philosophers, Marendella. Um then even within um uh Jewish mysticism, uh Cababala is highly informed uh by Pltonism. The Christian Cababala is also therein uh highly informed by uh the symbolic the allegorical uh the need to quest to go through these ladders uh of ascent and initiation uh to finally reach um these higher worlds. Uh goodness. And then of course the romantics, Christian romantics and the 19th the great um solos scriptor uh uh kind of turn in the 19th uh century in Protestants uh as well uh where oh no we don't need the neoplatanist like like with Christianity right where it's like oh let's just get back to the bible that we also see this the same kind of turn within the academic world where you know hey magnus and I'm calling you magnusel [laughter] uh any that that that's that also happens within scholarship on platonism where it's like ah let's just you know dismiss the neoplatonists and the tradition just get back to Plato uh and Aristotle uh themselves. So we don't we if we're going to be good academics don't listen to those crazy mystic uh philosophers of late antiquity um just get back to Plato itself uh paralleled the same uh turn within uh Christian hermeneutics as well. We don't need the neoplatonist. We need just we don't need uh uh the priest to tell us what's going on. We just need the Bible itself. And so, >> well, I mean, that's an interesting theory that I still hear people say nowadays. That's kind of the problem with the that idea of that religion is that you got somebody else telling you what that book means.
>> Well, I mean, we don't, right? But unlike the Gnostics, I would argue we do need teachers and gu guides, right? Like that's one of the things that these books tell us is they're there are guides and they're guides in human form and then and and they're people who have done the work of of reading and thinking and and going through all these texts and they have the the keys if you will to help you read more closely. And then one day you could have your epiphany. Um once you realize you have you've built yourself discipline so that you aren't just in your woowoo, right? You aren't just like yeah here I'm getting it immediately uh without any discipline >> because then you haven't really worked your memory like even Augustine, right?
Like when we're doing the work of of memory, we're doing we're that's part of the the activity that gets us to actually have that reunion with God. And so, yes, you can have epiphanies without having guides or teachers, but they sure do help. So, >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I just think like, you know, going to like a church. I don't know. It's hard to explain sometimes. I think, you know, relying on a priest or a pastor, like you're saying, I'd rather actually ask like my fellow occultist than go to a lodge. You know what I'm saying? But [snorts] >> hello crew. Hello all there out there.
Hello Danielle. Sorry for my tardiness.
Nick, >> I'm glad you made it, sir. So I came in at the perfect time because I think Danielle, this is then where your Nietian understanding really can come into play with the understanding of what happened with the master slave dialectic from this platonic understanding of how can we have first experience with the forms. And yet Nze comes out at us and has the understanding that like somewhere down the line, and this is something I've been trying to figure out, where was it in the historicity of the history of our of our like western tradition where all of a sudden and and maybe it's happened for thousands of years, but where did the priests kind of take over and say, "No, you in the pews, you shouldn't have nosis. You shouldn't have the understanding of the forms, and we're going to be the only ones who can touch them."
You are muted, Daniel.
>> See, this is the dorky nature of philosophers. Uh, so sometimes we're uh a little >> We all do it.
No, this is a great question. Uh, because there's no precise moment, uh, so to speak. I mean there are moments where you know people like Justinian you know start you know pulling funding uh from uh paganmies or platonicmies uh in 529 to be precise uh that says oh no you have to do it this way but a kind of hallmark like part of the church was part of that like this this is the dogma this is the creed this is the uh the way it is right and so clamping down uh on that particularly when when it comes to women uh and you know their voices and their bodies and things like this. Uh I would I would argue that's what made the the plaintist so confused as she froze. Oops. [snorts] And you're muted too, Brandon.
[laughter] >> Yeah. Daniel. Daniel's in the middle of nowhere up there in Washington and so she's as close to the forms as they get as she's trying to break on free from the archonic control. How's the conversation been going, Nick? Hey there out there all you rejects.
>> It's been going good actually.
>> Yo, she was telling me about stuff I never even heard of before.
>> Of course she was. She's a [ __ ] master philosopher. This woman is No, this she's extremely extremely intelligent.
>> Yeah, I was I sorry it took me so long.
Everyone out there, I was playing my own level of Dionisian accent into the Gaia.
I was uh tilling up I I I was keeping my promise of tilling up the garden.
So >> nice. Well, hopefully she comes back.
>> Yeah, she was going on about these uh the parthonoi. Did you ever hear about that stuff with these uh like these other virgin births? Basically >> uh the parthonogenesis.
>> I don't know if she said Genesis, but it was like she was going on about these cults that have like these women that were supposedly like I think like Yeah. Well, the parthononin the parthononogenesis is a natural form of asexual reproduction. So, it is the virginal birth. That's what that term means. And so, there are a bunch of plants and things that does that. Um, I've heard a little bit about that. What did she say?
>> That, you know, the whole idea even with Jesus being born, you know, of a virgin was already something that cults were doing prior like claiming.
>> Yeah. That's in that's f.
>> Yeah. So, like she was even saying like that idea really isn't even new. It's kind of like probably influenced from the other.
>> I I completely agree. So then Parthonon meaning house of the virgin monumental temple in Athens dedicated to the goddess Athena who bore the epitth Athena Parthnos or the virgin centerpiece of the cult was a 40ft tall golden and ivory statue created by the sculptor Fidius to signify wisdom, strategic warfare, and pure self- originating power.
>> That's >> Pete Thomas even knew that [ __ ] Well, I I know [laughter] he's dig into the Bible, so I should assume or Well, I don't know about the Bible, but he seems pretty pretty smart about this.
>> Well, then like the question is is, you know, have you ever watched um Zeitgeist and or Kimatica, a documentary from the early 2000s that was kind of pivotal in my own uh breaking free of the Matrix?
You ever you ever seen those?
>> No. No.
>> So, in the early 2000s, late 90s, yeah, Zeitgeist came out, I think.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah.
Zeitgeist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, right. That's like the money and the religion and all that stuff.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And so Kimatica and I think you should reach out to this guy. His name is Ben Joseph. Um and he created the Kimatica documentary. Maybe you and I should watch that documentary on one of our daily shows.
>> Oh, we should do that. Yeah, >> we should do that because then we should have Ben Joseph on. The guy who created that. Um and he's a real cool cat and I think he would be a great conversationalist with everything we're doing. and he was one of those theorists who tracked the lineage of how Horus and Mithris and all of these different deities and avatars um of these religions were the were how we got the Christ the Christ mythos.
And so, um, there's a woman by the name of, uh, Ara Arachia.
Um, what what, uh, Aon Bite had him had her on Archa S is what her name was. And she had all these books on, um, how the Christ is but a mythology and not an actual person. Um, and so she had all these lineages traced back and I think what's his name also does this. There's a few of those more conspiratorial gentlemen who aren't oultists who then get into um how Christ is just the amalgamation of all these different solar um gods.
>> I've heard that too. I don't know if I >> I don't like it >> amalgamation, but I do think it's he's I do think it's possible he's just an archetype for something bigger or like you were saying.
>> Yeah. And I what I like about this >> whole solar mixed together. I don't know about all that.
>> Yeah. I don't really like all that. I do get the whole um Oyrian rising and dying mythos of of Christ. Um but reading through the ritual and the dogma and ritual the high magic by uh Alphus Levy, he actually gets into how you know the the power of the logos and that Prometheian fire has moved through many avatars through the age and Christ was just the next in iteration of that soul of that logos moving through individuals. Um and I think that's really fascinating if we could read Christ especially the uh Christ as the a scene um to see him through that mystery school as just being somebody another path that we are all to follow and that he was an actual person and the virginal birth is that um Mary was a high priestess um of this kind because the fascinating documentarian is that you can actually um that Mary was actually uh a princess or a definite lineage of the kingship of those ages. And so that is one of the reasons of the bloodline of the kings moves through Jesus, not just through this he is a Jew who has the bloodline of David and Solomon that goes all the way back through Moses, all the way back to Adam and Eve, but that there actually is a bloodline of the meravenian line that moves through things that has this uh connection to the higher divine realms. Right? is, you know what I'm saying?
>> Yeah. [snorts] Yeah.
>> Yeah. So, it's it's a fascinating uh it's fascinating because then if you're understanding how platonic mysticism works is that Plato is trying to teach people how to technically, you know, move through into this Christos, this idea of the divine king, right? Christos means king, >> king priest.
And so it's like what you know if we were all to walk the path of Christ as we were talking about the other day it's like Peter may you know or who's St. Peter kind of, you know, took the Christian the Christos mythos and kind of um putrified it so to speak by putting himself as the pope and now you have one lineage and that's the only one instead of Plattonism which was trying to teach no we all can be and reach this level of contemplation and reflection through living the path of the philosopher king.
[snorts] >> Yeah. Even I mean they call him king of kings.
>> The king of kings, right? And then >> got king in there.
>> Uhhuh. And even in the introduction to the the the do the the ritual part of Alphus Levy's work of high magic, he's he's stating how the the inri was basically, you know, Ignatius and Naturi in Ignatia is this like um all of nature must be renewed by fire, which is this very noose to logos to this internal fire that moves through us all.
What's up, Danielle?
I am I'm on I'm like Can you guys hear me?
>> Yes. Yes.
>> You're >> okay. I'm on my phone. I'm hopefully switching uh back to the computer. So >> yeah. Yeah, it does show you on the computer, too. I was like, should I pull up both of you?
>> That's funny.
At least she's trying, right? Oh, and you're muted, too.
>> What the f What the [ __ ] Uh >> it's got to be her connection.
>> Yeah. What's fascinating I mean Danielle is fantastic. She with her with her uh because I was because this idea of did how was she talking about this Platonic mysticism and Christianity was she >> I you know we didn't really get into the mysticism yet. I was actually going to start asking you about some of that if you understood that cuz I was going to ask if there was actually like any uh because I don't think it is originally in the stuff but was there any like Pltonist that started incorporating rituals?
>> Yeah, of course. I mean not even that it was rituals but we had a um the understanding that reflection and introspection is a ritualistic act in the Platonic sense. And so people like Platinus into Procalis >> um where they were tapping into the divine mind through >> you mentioned proalition and I think memory possibly.
>> Yes. Yes. And so that is one of those um Platinus himself was somebody who was tapping into um mysticism through his divine reflections. I think is a is a way to is to the way to state it.
Yeah, I didn't know she even mentioned too that uh Thomas Aquinus was a kind of a plaintist through Aristotle.
>> Of course. And to realize that Aquinus was taught by a magus. He was taught by Alberta Magnus himself.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He destroyed He destroyed his android.
>> Yeah.
>> Supposedly, you know, if this thing existed, but yeah. Didn't he walk into his shop and saw his android and freaked out and broke it or something?
>> Oh, yeah.
>> So, guys, sorry about the internet issues.
>> That's all right. as long as you made it back.
>> You're in the middle of nowhere out there.
>> So, move closer to my uh router. So, hopefully it'll work now.
>> Um, do you know I was listening to a guy Danielle Arthur Versulius is a professor I believe. Um, he was just on New Thinking Aloud and he was talking about Platonic mysticism and Platinus.
>> Do you know that guy?
>> Nice. Yeah. I don't know. No. So, >> okay. Anyway, what I liked what he was talking about and you can speak more highly to this probably obviously uh due to your genius is that um uh that Platinus himself was more of a mystic due to his ways that he believed in tapping into the divine mind and uh through his levels of reflection is that kind of contemplation and that viewing how we we can actually use contemplation in a ritualistic manner and plat but they they never talk about how Platinus did it. That's one of these things that's strange is they never talk about how they do it. They just talk about that they did it and this is what they realized. What do you think of that?
>> So, repeat the question because my internet was being weird, but I think I solved the internet problem. So, I hope hopefully this won't uh be a problem anymore.
>> No, beautiful. The question is about Platinus and Plutinus was I would state a platonic mystic, you know, a Platonian, right? And so, and they never actually like the mystics and oultists always want to be like, well, what were the rituals that you used? And instead, Plutonus are like, "Let's not worry about that. Let's worry about how we're using contemplation and reflection to tap into philosophia and to tap into the divine mind and platonic forms." And so, can you speak on how then how Platinus was a mystic using contemplation and introspection that way?
>> Oh goodness. No, I mean that's that's his bread and butter, right? And this is one of the reasons why uh yeah, when I mentioned the you know later scholarship, that's why they thought that Platinus was neo, right? uh neoplatonic versus those those are the ones that uh take platonism and turn it into a spirituality uh because they were living in the age of anxiety and there's this need um uh for platonism to be you know a little bit more woowoo and so let's ignore uh the platonic tradition starting with patinus mostly anybody after Aristotle uh and so there's a a very common debate um within scholarship about platinus's mysticism though uh because he uh is distinct according to pfery uh from somebody like Yamligus right who has the importance of rituals and the importance of going beyond mere contemplation but for Plutinus himself right the activity of philosophy can get us to this union uh with the one that there is a contemplative way of being that you know is similar to meditation uh supposedly uh Pinus reached this uh state of union uh with the one uh more than a few times uh and he's He one of the the classic passages is that uh he always surprised when he comes out of it that he he why did he descend again basically uh kind of moments like why would I do this? Uh and so no uh yes uh platinus is highly influential within the Christian tradition as far as kind of modeling you know that contemplation philosophy is that ancilla right to this reunion um or to the divine uh handmaidaden um uh for theology uh in many ways. So >> nice. Thank you. Thank you. And I think that's something that that I'm always trying to help bring back to the oulted world and to our western esoteric tradition is that for some reason philosophy is seen below the emblekin ritualist ritualism and I don't like that because I do view levels of contemplation and to be able to put yourself into that kind of introspection and tapping into with the right kind of um medium or whatever it is. But like you can reach that that level of of whatever that one that you know the monad or the one that Plutinus is talking about through that way right like >> yeah well well for uh amicus right like contemplation is part of it it's part of the rungs of latter but there's just a next step so there are various different virtues uh for an amlicus but the contemplative virtue is surpassed by the theoric virtue or the this place where you become like Orpheus or a poet uh that you can't help but want to create um kind of place. So that for Yamicus, it's not a rejection of contemplation.
Um it's no, this is this is again part of the disciplining um of your body, of your soul, of your mind that can get you to these ecstatic states. Now, of course, there are people who can get to these ecstatic states uh of reunion, homothesis without contemplation. So don't get me wrong, but those people as Plato would suggest in the Republic through Socrates are very rare. Uh uh they're they're much like the the true cynic for a stoic. So uh for the stoic, the hyper model of like awesome virtue would have been a cynic like Dioynes, right? But they were Socrates gone mad.
They these are the the people that are so uh rugged if you will in having that like understanding of what is nature and what is uh you know authoria which is peace of mind. uh they got it immediately and they're willing to go uh to the ground and you know sleep in wine barrels which again uh I don't know if you guys know this but cynicism uh and the the way of life that they modeled like Dioynes and crates and these people uh was picked up by Christianity via you know wearing those brown sack bags that were hard and because in order to give you that eskeeis right that your clothes don't matter and all I need for a belt is a rope uh and I'm going to shave my head and all these things. It was to look like a philosophical tradition that people recognized these that the robes they were all modeled after uh Dioynes the cynic who was very um much uh uh described as Socrates gone bad. So cynicism as a different offshoot uh of Pltonism but yeah I digress. Uh but the point is yes contemplation and the more than contemplation are part and parcel uh why the plaintist uh is a philosopher and that philosopher is and was and it was born in a kind of spiritual way of life.
>> So and that's why it inspires so many Christians.
>> Right. Because you're contemplating upon that of God.
>> Yeah. And you you have you're >> you have a direct source.
>> Yeah. But you're not just contemplating.
they're trying to live it as well, right? Uh because >> you know we can all sit around and read a good book and you know write out Parmmeny's dialectic and we can have the understanding um of these things but platonism demands more than understanding. Um there's the good beyond being if we're going to go straight to the platonic text but for amlus proclus uh platinus for any platonist with their bread and butter there's there is something more than just thinking and understanding I mean this is what the divine names is also about is doing a kind of negative theology to prepare ourselves for a vision if you will um of the divine or a kind of uh invoking of the divine in your daily life and with your use of language uh and to know that thought and language uh only capture that that that liinal uh but that liinal something of beyond is fully present um in a strange paradoxical way. So >> yeah, that's great.
One thing I did want to ask you uh just from experience of people being on the show and talking about uh Plato as well and you know just random stuff not really necessarily speaking on Christianity but um I have heard them say that they uh think that he was very um influential or his his stuff was very influential when it came to um I guess like angels, demons and like kind of like hierarchies within Christianity with Jews. Sorry guys, I can't hear you.
>> I don't know.
>> I don't know.
>> Are you there?
>> I can hear you, Brandon. Yeah.
>> Oh, nice. Nick, one more time.
>> Can you hear me, Brandon?
>> I can hear you.
>> Wow, that is amazing. I can't.
>> Wow, that is so weird.
>> That is so weird.
>> Unless Unless I leave and come back, I don't know.
>> I'm just going to say the gods don't want me to talk about blatantism Christianity is what I'm [laughter] going to say.
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy.
Ask her ask her because then I'll even I don't know what to do.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh ask her if uh you knowism if if it influenced uh >> you know Christianity when it came to angels and demons.
>> Yeah. Nice. Yeah. What what Nick's trying to say I am uh helping be the voice of that cardinal electric head.
And um the idea is what he's trying to get at and some some people have said this interesting enough. come on the show and they don't quite understand the so they're like well Plato Plato and Pltonism is actually what brings us like angels and demons into Christianity. Is that kind of what you're asking Nick? Is that kind of where that's coming from?
Um which I mean I of my reading he doesn't really speak of anything like that of angels and demons right besides Damon of Pltonism. No, I mean they're in So yeah, the daon, right, is the kind of is the the predecessor or the the precursor uh to you know the Christian understanding of angels and and dammons and so >> I mean >> folk uh kind of etmologies in fact show that that's what Christians were trying to do is to turn the word don which means your personal guide, right? Your your that leading spirit into demon.
Don't listen to those personal guides.
They're demons. their problems. But even within plonism, right, there there's highly elaborate forms of demonology, right? Uh and this is all part of a tradition, a philosophical tradition.
This does not emerge just with the um the neoplatonist. This kind of exacting let's figure out what diamonds are. Uh but rather no like this many philosophers had been doing this for a long time even outside of the platonic uh tradition. But the point is is that uh within like somebody like Eiamicus or Proclas we get right that there is the human being there's the hero there's diamonds uh and then there's uh angels and then there's you know the heads the the gods there's different levels of gods even right uh that interact and relate to us uh in the world and in our rituals that we invoke we have like our you know the lower god uh Aphrodite here in this world. And so that somebody like pseudodians uh and even Aquinus um what they're doing in doing angelies and demonologies is this activity that stems from Platonic uh authors doing very similar things in order to get a kind of clear understanding. Even the Platonists say look there are demons that are quote unquote bad. Uh but they're they're not actually bad. They're just nature.
They're they're they're the diamonds that are tying you to the natural world.
They're just doing and so when you're, you know, going off on the rails and [clears throat] you decide uh you have a choice. Are you going to take a drink or are you not going to take a drink? You know, like that's the demon like tying you to the the the substance of uh the alcohol in order because it can in fact and will relieve, you know, whatever momentary anxiety you have because that's its so-called power. Or you can choose not to drink it. Uh, and that's you going transcending the material, uh, so to speak, uh, and so the little demon's going to be a little annoyed.
Um, uh, cuz it couldn't do [laughter] its job. Um, it really wanted to relax your spirit. So anyways, all of this stuff, >> but then there's a different there's the differentiation between the go the God as the good and the in the forms and God as in Jehovah as in one of the small because Jehovah to me has or Yah or Yahweh is another lower level form of Jupiter or Saturn or you know Zeus or any of these things even you know to me. So if like how I wrap this up, if I were to place these things on the different sephra of the tree of life, you are placing Jupiter and Zeus and maybe even Jehovah on say um um Chessid, right? And the fourth Sephra and interesting enough once you get up to Kethther, this is the all-encompassing source of all things that beams itself down into the all from the an right. So it's like to encompass the name of God which is yod vod which is just another symbol to express the ineffable which the ineffable can be termed to be like the the forms in a way but more like the celestial splendor of the pythagorans.
I think there's this strange mixup of what Nick's asking, which I'm going to interpret into my own words because you can't hear Nick, but it's this idea that of like um a lot of the both sides Christian practitioners or just Christians or the [ __ ] pagans that I like are trying to decry Plato as another tyrant of level of fascism because they're misunderstanding of the republic. Um, there's something going on here with this a misunderstanding of what the good is and what the forms are trying to express and this kind of cover up of like is the good just another form of Jehovah >> or God?
>> Well, I'm so I'm not 100% sure I understand your question. Um, uh, but I'm I'm gonna try I'm gonna try. I mean, it's because the reason why I you made my mind go in many different directions, right? And so this is one of the [laughter] reasons why. So I I could easily riff on uh you know this kind of beautiful layering of angels right and all this stuff. Uh but I could also go off in the direction of talking about where you would place you know a certain god within the neoplatonic system so that there two like so that there's Zeus at the level uh of the intelligible uh intellect. Um and then there's a kind of you know Dianisis right that's also you know somehow straddling the world of intellect and soul. Uh, and so all of this fun stuff and and I could either appeal to amicuses or prophesuses uh or Damascus' uh kind of placement and putting things in different places, but what really matters is that there is a creativ aspect of creating these particular hierarchies and levels. I mean, Damascus is one of my favorites where he's constantly debating with Proclas about where certain uh figures and deities belong. And he does the work that you're trying to do, which is bring in uh outside traditions, right? Uh Hebraic traditions, uh Christian traditions. He he doesn't do the Christian, but he's you know, other meditarian traditions. So he's doing it with Egyptian mythology as well because that's part of the work is to say, look, oh, I know that those myths sound really crazy and wackadoo. I mean, what do you mean God showed his backside? Um, [laughter] but doing that work of being like, but it's I think it's wackadoo, but I'm I'm going to be a responsible philosopher and find ways to think about how these things are rational and make sense so that we can put them in these hierarchies so that they can help us, as you're saying, to travel this pathway to to contemplate, as you were saying earlier, this lower level angel or demon or saraphin or whatever it might be because we know that that contemplation even with myths that make no sense to you that are outside your tradition help you ascend that rung until you get to that good beyond being or that more than uh I mean there's so many different myths that the later neoplatonists appeal to to get us to even have visualization of that which is the good right that the good or the one beyond being uh through orphic uh an appeal to orphic and calaldian oracles uh or orphic rapidities that and Calaldian uh oracles ends up becoming imagine imagine all [clears throat] things are born of chaos and aether, right? And this is the this is before the impenetrable chamber uh of um the intelligible, right? And this this this chaos and aether weirdly have a snake that's that's that's coming and bringing them together and then boop, now we've got mus orphic egg, right? And that's when we first get to that level of the intelligible. And so this is one of the reasons why I think Christianity is also part of this platonic tradition is that it knows that it needs to tell these stories. It needs to have gospels. It needs to have those miracles that allow us uh to think of yeah that anything is possible that the infinite is within uh um as I think it's oh is it origin who says uh that there's an oh no it's Augustine uh that there's an inward in me that's even more inward uh than I can imagine the highest in me that's higher than this is how Christianity and platonism had this similar dialogue that there are something infinite in the human being.
And the fact that we can tap into that uh via contemplation of what looks like woowoo uh to most people is is actually part of our superpower.
>> Nice. Let's see if she can hear you, Nick.
>> Yeah. Can you hear me now, Daniel? Or no?
>> Unfortunately, no.
>> Oh, man. Yeah. Let me leave real quick and come back. It's just my I won't record what's being said if I leave real quick. So, just hold on one second.
>> Okay. Pause.
>> All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, the internet archons are uh running on high right now.
>> That's right. [laughter] >> That's crazy. Yeah, I think when he gets back, we should have you define God from a because what's I want him to get this recorded. The idea is that like God for Here he is. How about now?
>> Can you hear me now?
>> No, it's got to be my end. Will you guys mind if I hop off and hop back in again?
>> Yeah, please try it out. All right.
Yeah, Nick, I um there's this thing that I feel like the audience needs to know and it has the it's the defining God from a sense of Plato, defining God from a neoplatonic idea and defining God from a Christian idea. And then >> you know what I mean? Because then I want to get to Christians of today don't believe what Christians of the past believe.
>> Oh no, it's not even the same [ __ ] Really?
>> It's not even the same [ __ ] So, it's fascinating that then why you know you know what I'm talking about when I say this, but like this pagan hate of Christian mythoses. Daniel's back.
>> Can you hear me?
>> Yes. Yes, I can. [laughter] >> Perfect.
>> You know what's funny is that you can even see from when you came on before your your audio and your screen is amazing now. So, you [laughter] definitely have a great connection. You just couldn't hear me. I was like, this is crazy.
>> Yeah, ask her ask her that, please. I think that's actually a really good question.
>> Perfect. Okay. So, Danielle, I'm going to throw one at you right now. So, the idea, this is what I think needs to be defined for the audience and for just a a conversation that's really important in this day and age that Plato had a definition of God. And maybe he didn't even actually have it because the theology came from the Neoplatonics like Plutinus Pro and these characters. And so, can you define what what Plato would define as God and then go into how Platinus and Procalas or like the Neoplatonics would kind of see it? I know they each had their own kind of thing. But then as Christians of that time frame like Augustine and Aquinus, Christianity has its own definition of what God means. And then why this is important is because of I'm continually trying to say Abrahamic traditions of today, Christianity specifically see God different than the Christians of the past saw God.
>> I think so.
>> Okay. No, no. I mean, [clears throat] well, how how we how we see God now is always going to be different than how in antiquity. Um, because it changes, it adapts. I mean, this is why uh the ancients were uh polytheistic is because they there was an understanding that God can take many forms. It could be the Zenia, the stranger right in front of you. Uh so, be sure to let them in your home uh and be nice because who knows, it could be Hera at your door. Now here like when it comes specifically to Plato uh that Plato was very good about responding to the zeitgeist about our relationship with the divine. Right? So I'm going to take it kind of a little slowly and bring it down. So Plato in the Republic through Socrates basically criticizes the poetic conception of the divine. Why? because the poetic conception of the divine at the time uh made it to where Zeus uh you know did all sorts of horrible things to to women and you know Hera is out to deceive and you know get back and and so propagating a kind of literalist conception of the myths of the time right uh so that people believed that the world was you know problematic but to go back to your desire to talk about form in the republic what he's doing is he's trying to get people to understand the Word divine means perfect, right? Theoid like it should this is this is God people uh these are the gods there's they're absolute and so getting us to think ah in their absolute perfect form right to really think perfection and absolute it cannot change and so all the the the prescriptions or uh descriptions excuse me of uh the divine in the criticism of the poets is his way to start talking about form actually. So they're all attributes of what forms are. And then later in book 10, he says, look, once you've had a certain kind of education about the divinity and the divinity of your soul and the divinity of your community and people uh because you're all aligned toward this idea of the good or this what is beyond uh being. Uh then in book 10, he says you can bring your poets back, all the poets and all their crazy descriptions. You can you can have gods look like lions. And he doesn't say it all like this, but the return of the poet means that as long as you can give a good defense of why talking about Zeus raping Lea is okay uh allegorically allegorically then then bring bring it.
Just don't let it in your mind that the gods would actually hurt you in that way. Tell stories, but tell stories that allow you to think about what it could possibly mean for a woman like Lea to be abducted uh and be raped as a swan uh and then to give birth to two eggs with Helen and Clyde Mestra and uh the discurs twins uh Caster and Pollocks. Um uh but yeah, and anyways uh so there's there's that. So that Plato has a conception of the divine that he's philosophically trying to get people to.
But the problem is is that his culture has either slipped into literalism and so they're they're they're getting too, you know, in in the weeds of this this is these myths are absolutely true because we've got this emergence of writing that is turning these myths of Homer and Heidi into basically stale unchanging uh stories when it used to be part and parcel of an oral tradition to know who your audience is. And maybe instead of Artemis doing one thing in a story that you're singing to somebody, you make it somebody else or use a different god's name because you know that that god uh Cibil in one part of the Mediterranean is in fact Diana in another part of the Mediterranean. Uh and so there's uh an important aspect of moving away from perfect literalism because it doesn't allow for you to you know have that kind of transformative understanding of the divine. Uh but there was also a political problem in Athens with regards to that it was trying to reify and make it secular. Uh and so that kind of draining the culture of any it's not rational to believe in any of this. This is ridiculous. It's really about money and sex and power uh and law. This is man's uh world. Man's in charge. Uh and so that the the culture that Plato was living in was one in which there were two big problems.
Kind of relativism gods, gods that can do anything they want when they want with no attention to the good and then the empty useless um conception of the divine. We don't need the divine. We're men. We can think uh and do it all ourselves. Uh and so Plato's advancement of uh the divine. Yeah. He wants us to think of it as the good beyond being.
But this is not abstract, right? Uh this is not just the the god of the philosophers that you can't sing to, dance to or pray to. No. Once you understand that the good is what is beyond being h and you try to capture it in a myth or a story or a dialogue like Plato was trying to do then you are doing so in the Tameus he invokes the demiurge right the demiurge is the creative god who in his you know creative dance with Kora uh the feminine receptacle creates the whole of the world soul and and so yeah the the platonic concept of EOA is is complex and beautiful. uh it demands as I keep saying a skezis some work right that it's not a simple uh understanding of the divine in platonism no way shape or form but that's part of the mystery that's part of what plate is doing is to invite you into how can all these paradoxes that I say about god uh and and dons and and human beings uh trapped in the earth uh as well as being able to fly up uh in the uh hyperonos with your, you know, chariot and wings. Like all of these things contribute uh to getting you just as it is in Christianity to recognize this power uh that you have to be like the divine um to become that way that it's an activity that is um part of what it means to really understand the vocation of the human being.
>> That's beautiful. pause before you then move on to the next part or two that you're going to move into is that that seems to be where the Christians of today and maybe of the past and then that there's this because it's hard to generalize about terms because to say that you have a divine spark within you is a very like platonic thing also a very Christian thing but at the same time a lot of people get weary when all of a sudden you start to claim that you are have God within and what that means because technically there's only one person that is God on earth and that is the Christos right and so there are these strange terms and realms that then you get the of the past the same today of the literalness of people we're very literal in these dogmatic um religions and philosophies because philosophy also has fallen prey to literalism and so it's a fascinating thing that moves through space and time and then you get more of the esoteric individuals who are like wait no that spark within actually means that I am a son of God who walks around trying to then understand my place in the world.
And so there's such a fascinating I just wanted to state that it's like a fascinating thing of something that's going on in humanity where we don't want to lay claim to our own self sovereignty.
>> No, but I mean this is I I think I've probably spoken about this with you guys before. This is one of the reasons why I think there's a rise in the accusation of calling people narcissists um and solopscistic um that that like ah like like first off like every philosopher with their grain of salt is helping you learn to care for yourself right and to have a form of virtue that you you aren't ashamed right you you know right that that you were living a life directed and guided by something good uh because you know that you know the texts are speaking um with power uh because they were written by somebody who also had that epiphany who also had uh that the theosophic uh relationship uh to the very activity uh of writing that you you're doing that work of being like you know what everything is divine and that's hard work even myself which means here comes the Christian concept of forgiveness like once you oh that's how it can come about is once you see like oh all even all that sin, right? It's it's still anointed. It's still, you know, forgiven. It's still I mean, poor didn't like this aspect about the Christians. And so, if you want me to talk about that, I will. Um because he he thought it made them uh not very good at um acquiring virtue because you could just be forgiven and uh and then but here like because that that's it's an easy fix. Porfrey said um in his criticisms against the Christians is that part of what uh the pagan platonic tradition was trying to say is like you know it's it's hard to develop this kind of self-care that makes you ultimately aware that every action and every way that you view and encounter the world has to be able to as the cult will say I'll chem I'll chemicalize it right uh to transform uh that bronze uh into gold. uh that's that's no that's no easy uh labor. In fact, it's a herculean task to take your wretchedness and then live in such a way that you see that wretchedness in its beauty. Uh so that you do have a form of courage that doesn't come from fear. Uh you do have a form of uh temperance that doesn't come from chaos. Uh and and so on and so forth. Um so I don't know how I got off on that. Uh goodness. Let me see if I can remember. Uh oh no. Oh, you're m muted.
>> It's my fault like you got off on that.
That's why because I I took you down a side of like I there's this like similarity within. That's the God within. Yeah. Exactly.
>> Yeah. And so here this this God within or this divine within we also know as a platonist and as Christians uh that that the the microcosm and the macrocosm they have a relationship, right? That the way the reason I can reach towards the God is because I am part of this great chain. And I I have part of that signature uh within myself, right? I And it's part of myself that is uncanny and uh confusing and mysterious because it it isn't either rational um or irrational. It's it's something that constitutes the basis of both of those things. And and so like when you think of it not as you know narcissism or solopsism uh but no I I care for my soul. I care so much that I'm going to see and revel in its power and its beauty because what else would a divine thing want me to do with such a token uh or signature as proclas would call it.
Would he want me to be ashamed of it?
Uh-uh. Like no. Uh and and then to to show that be a paradigm as Aristotle and Plato um for that ability which means you're going to look like a Socrates.
You might sound a little rude. uh you might have a foreign way of convincing uh people like being virtuous does not mean being nice and that's again you don't realize that until you are doing that work um I mean hopefully you are nice and kind um in the process but not Socrates always nice and kind uh was was the Christ god always nice and kind no he he went into that temple with a cat of ninetails said get um you know he wasn't always as my husband said a tree hugging god um there was more uh to the Christian narrative. There's more to the Abrahamic narrative than just be nice. I don't think David or Solomon were nice.
Uh but man, uh the power of their stories and the power of their lives to have trickled into the hearts of the people um who hold faith in them, right, is is is fierce. And yes, it to those who don't understand what that's like, what kind of relationship that is that is like, it'll look like fanaticism.
It'll look like narcissism. It'll look like you drank the Kool-Aid. Um, but it's part of living the life that you would ride and die for.
>> Beautiful. Yeah, that's beautiful.
>> Yeah.
Was there anything else that you wanted to ask, Brandon, or anything before?
>> You got a whole list, don't you?
>> Yeah, I did. She touched on so many of them that I feel like that if I uh if I even bring it up, it's like kind of making her say something she already said before.
>> [laughter] >> No, that's all right. Um, >> yeah, cuz I got things I can ask, but I want to hear what you got.
>> What did Christian thinkers take from pagan platonists while also trying to separate themselves from pagan religion?
Well, first off, you know, recogn So, Christians knew, right, that if they were going to spread the good word, so to speak, that they had to take on aspects of the pidea or the education that was part of the Greek intellectual aristocratic culture. Like part of any uh religious movement is first off infiltrating the rich. um getting uh them to believe in the um yeah this new uh fangled thing. Also the the like getting it into uh your military class as well is a typical uh strategy because then if you if you're a king and your military is all following one particular um god or divinity as in the case um uh of Rome uh and suddenly you have to kind of okay I if you fight for me I guess I'm going to have to say Christ god now instead of all the pagan gods. Uh but the point is is that uh you get into the intellectual aristocratic culture so that it starts taking on the same similar systems. Uh so like here the one uh intellect soul like giving you know kind of triune structure to your divinity via that pagan um aspect and then debating about that triune uh structure. uh so it's a little bit different than those platonist so on and so forth and then taking those systems like exugesus of texts so that you know part of Christian hermeneutics um begins with taking from the platness the value of doing exugesus commentary uh analysis so that you you are commenting on the Bible you're trying to think through it as origin did with the song of songs uh through a kind of platonizing uh form of allegorization and exit Jesus uh structuring right making divine hierarchies [clears throat] this process uh and through dialectic right and various different kinds of dialectic so giving uh Christianity the meat uh and substance uh via appropriating things from Greek philosophical pideic traditions right uh and so so much of Christianity is informed by the philosophical tradition I mean this is why it was described as an ancilla or handmade to theology um was because it was part of the tool bag of getting an understanding or faith seeking understanding that's what philosophy became right and I would argue that's a form of platonism and so taking all this but also as I told you guys with the monks robes showing that it is a way of life so even the monastic traditions right modeled themselves after various different other traditions including the academy where you would you know make a place uh for schooling.
So that when monks you know started making universities and schools part of that was in this belief of there being uh philosophy pennis perennial texts um uh and scribal activities. you know the the the scribes that you know the you think monks you know doing that work of copying things out over and over and this comes from antiquity where you're like this is a living text as Plato uh was trying to make and those scribes in antiquity long before uh you know Christianity emerged knew this as a activity of faith. I mean, who sits in front of a wax tablet writing out the same book over and over and over again?
But somebody who knows that philosophy is an activity of faith is an activity that puts you in accord with the divine.
And maybe you too after having copied this out a thousand times will have that epiphany about the nature of God. And so that here the very activity of being scribes was something they saw as of value. Um and so scribes, teachers, uh traveling to spread the good word even um philosophers in the in the Platonic tradition moved around the Mediterranean both uh because there were problems. Uh there was uh Justinian, you know, basically ending uh um the uh being allowing people to be pagan uh professors. So you know, you run off to Syria um or present day Iraq uh and you know, you get to be able to open a school there, right? uh and so knowing that this traveling was both because uh needing to find a place where philosophy is safe to do which again I think we do that now right lots of us are moving away from traditional academic worlds because we're not able to do the kinds of philosophy that needs to get out into the world right uh so even evangel evangelical practices of of moving and spreading the good word is something that philosophy has been very adept at doing since the beginning. So, >> thank you very much. One more thing I did want to ask. Uh I don't know if I asked it before, maybe I was thinking about asking it. Um or maybe I heard you say something or I was trying to get to it. Uh with ritual stuff, um you know, my opinion, you can look at Catholicism, Christianity ornosticism, um can get very ritualistic. Well, obviously with Catholicism, do but do you think any of that was um possibly influenced by people who were more like neoplatonic with the kind of ritualistic edge?
No, I mean not I mean I could easily talk about various different you know if you go to uh Yamus's day mysterious you know there's all sorts of various different rituals that are strangely similar to uh some of the rituals within uh Christianity uh but then the the plagonists for the most part you know the very activity of what we are doing now is a kind of ritual is a kind of prayer for we forgot we're just talking.
We're just gabbing like no this was dialectic. This was the method of question and answer. Um uh this was this this this is how you hone your skills.
Uh and you know what uh as Socrates says in the Republic, you don't do it when you're young, right? If you do it when you're too young, two things could happen. You could become a sufist, right? Uh and just yabber yang yammer and do it all for the sake of power. And so you're you're enacting the ritual of your Chad bro guy, right? Who just thinks he's saying a lot when he's not.
Um, and so don't do it too young because you could become too cocky. Uh, don't do it when you're too young or you could become misanthropic. You can uh mythologist is actually the the word he uses in the fato where you could become skeptical that any argument, right, can be turned around and contradicted. So you you don't trust arguments or words because any slick boy can you know say one thing one day and then another thing the the other day. So don't trust words.
And so that's one of the reasons why you don't become a yammer like us at practicing dialectic until [laughter] you've observed it uh enough and you can see the skill and in it that it's not just you know a bunch of hot air right and so you're analyzing all these conversations to see oh I see Danny is the is the sophist and it's Brandon who's the philosopher ah and that these are the methods that they use to do this and but Brandon is doing it and D oh well let's take it back. I can now tell that Danny's actually a philosopher because she's doing all of these arguments even using sophistic arguments i.e. uh clever manipulative strategies uh but towards the good because it's it is a belief in the good and a belief that if I do this >> we're going to have a light bulb moment together. I'm going to see you understand the words coming out of my mouth and we will then in front of people proven that connection is real >> that we are not separate. That's what dialectic does. It overcomes >> this this paradox of our aloneeness uh because we can all get trapped in that that world of believing that all there is is death and taxes or sex and money.
Uh there is no real connection or participation. But every time we use dialectic as a kind of ritual, right, uh of faith seeking understanding, right?
Uh this activity and you give me that light bulb moment or you ask another question because you don't believe I'm ever defeated. You know, you I'm ready to take your questions. This this is a kind of prayer. Uh the tameus begins with uh the demiurge sorry with tameus saying no account of the gods uh should in fact um not begin with prayer and then to them and then he doesn't pray he just starts the account of the god and then when we get the opening of the critius he says and now I conclude my prayer so that we find out that the entire activity of narrating >> it was itself the prayer and so if we think of ritual as putting, you know, >> incense on your patio and like, no, it's bigger than that. It can be your entire way of life. It could be thanking that speck of dust, not to get all American beauty that flew by your eye. Uh um because why not? Isn't that a better way to relate to the things that we see?
>> Yeah. And I like that because then hypnosis can come within the conversation and it can be an embodied moment in that moment of of reaching divine that light bulb moment is like the good you know coming into us all through convers. I think that's one of the most important things about the di about conversation and dialectic and doing what you're doing, doing what we're doing and trying to refine ourselves because it's almost like every stream, every show, every episode, every moment that you're not only here but then out in the world, I'm continually trying to and this is why then it's not sophistry is because I'm continually trying to myself tap into my practice, tap into the good and then in the conversation I cannot remember the term the technical term that Haidiger used but it's trying to bring us underneath the layers into the substance of things which is then trying to talk about what is meaningful, right? and and in those moments that's when we have a coalescing and our egos and our personas and we get away from that and then all of a sudden we merge together and realize that like that is the one we are together the one that moment that's kind of how I I like >> no and I mean and sometimes when I'm uh letting myself be a little mystical even with platinas I think this is what it means to be alone with the alone is that oh you know hey in dialectic we can do this we can we can overcome the boundary of separation Because you know what?
We're not really separate in the sense of uh um [clears throat] separate in the sense of merely particular merely um like we are idiot which means it does come the word idiot comes from this guys. Just so you know when you call somebody an idiot you're calling them you're you're call you're calling them unique.
>> That's what the word idiot comes from.
It comes from a kind of oneness right? A kind of uniqueness. Uh, and so, uh, again, this is a good example of how a word that had originally, uh, oh, >> damn, she froze again.
>> Yeah, it's She's just [ __ ] spitting fire. It's cuz she spits fire.
>> Danielle spits fire, bro. That's how it works. That's beautiful.
>> Even her video was like clear as hell now. When she first came on, it was kind of like blotchy and I was like, "Oh, god."
>> Yeah. No, that's beautiful. And I think that's something important that everybody needs to realize is that through the dialectic through these um through uh the question and answer of what Socrates does with the d what Socrates does with the dialogue that is the embodiment and that is hypnosis that is that is that is a you have to it takes faith to get into conversations with normal people right don't you feel that way [laughter] >> you know it takes faith you have to know that maybe we can find common ground and when I hear people say things like, "I don't like small talk." I'm all like, "Well, how do we get into the big talk?"
>> Yeah.
>> If you don't start with small talk.
>> No, I totally agree with that. Yeah. No.
>> You know, so it's like anybody's like, "I'm I don't do small talk. It annoys me." And I'm all like, "I'm annoyed by you already, so I don't know what [laughter] what you're talking about." So, it's a um it's it's a it's a fascinating um it's a fascinating conversation. Yeah.
She's in the middle of the forest of Washington. And so there was actually a co a question up here that I wanted to >> um I'm not Danielle. So but I will answer this question on how I believe if I can um find it. Ask about the unknown god P. Thomas asked that question.
>> Daniel, you're back. [laughter] >> It is so funny. I got an a router extension or something like this and it was working great for like two weeks and then suddenly the last like two days it's been doing this weird thing. So I don't know what's going on. So listeners or viewers or whatever it is. Uh so yeah, >> you should use your um five instead of the 2.4 if that's what you do for streaming. The StreamYard likes uh the five gigahertz instead of 2.4. So if you do switch over it'll take you it'll it'll glitch. But do do you find that to be true, Nick?
>> I don't even know what you're talking about, actually.
>> Oh, great. So, on your Wi-Fi, there's 2.4 GHz or there's 5 gigahertz. And 5 GHz actually helps with the StreamYard um more than 2.4 does.
>> Oh, I should look into that.
>> I looked into it because I was sick of [ __ ] glitching all the time and I was like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?"
>> Oh, she's glitched again.
>> That's only because she's switching over to five. So, um really quick, I'm going to answer this. So, the unknown god.
Plato doesn't talk about a god, so to speak. All of Plato is talking about is that all we all the good is the is resembling of the of God of the forms.
And so we can only speak about what resembles that which is instead of talking about what something is which is then why he has so many dialogues is because if he's trying his theology is wrapped not into one theology it's wrapped into every dialogue that he has and then from there we are meant those that's exoteric. We are then meant to read every dialogue and understand the basic framework of how he because in that time frame you got to remember that you could be put to death if you dispose of the mysteries.
And so he was trying to get us out there and talk about the mysteries through a way that is uh making it so he doesn't get in trouble like his mentor did. And so I was talking about and you can refine this. There's a question Danielle um ask about the unknown god please. Um, and so I I gave my brief um pleb answer in comparison to your professor answer which is much better than I at times Danielle. Um, but so the idea is that we can't talk about the good. We can only talk about what resembles the good, >> right? So like this idea of the unknown god, whatever that is. There is no really unknown god besides what the good is and then how we can talk about it.
Yeah, she's she's crushing it right now. And she froze again. What the hell?
>> Yeah, her internet's tough. I think um I think Palunteer got to her.
>> Palunteer. [laughter] >> It's It's actually Gonzaga her her uh her school that she teaches at that's actually like whoa whoa whoa. We can't have her go into the oult rejects.
>> Yeah, you're funny. Yeah. [laughter] [gasps] >> You know what's funny? I sent her the link through that email before and she never got it. She ended up she ended up emailing me and being like, "I'm just waiting on the link." And I'm like, "I sent it to you."
>> You sent it to Oh, >> I sent, you know, I was like, "Oh, maybe I thought I didn't. I never did." And I checked and I was like, "No, I sent it."
>> Yeah. The Palenode Productions is the one you use. Yeah.
>> No, no, she told me to start using that one. Yeah.
>> Yeah. That's the one I use. Yeah. And the idea Thank you, uh, Pete Thomas. Um, and you don't have to agree with it because if you think about it, there is this God beyond God. And I do agree that there is this unknown god that they're speaking about the the the ineffable thing. And so that goes into our last stream um and what we talked about this whole time um that I'm continually bringing out is that there's this mythology. So Plato doesn't not like mythology. He's just trying to give it to you in a new way because his the history is time is changing. And so we have to understand that the mythology is giving is talking about something that we can't talk about this ineffable name.
That's why then Judaism and the Jew Jewish mysticism is talking about the yode vote is the ineffable name. They're t, you know, it's not Jehovah.
>> Yod vote is the creation of this shell that we call Jehovah or Yahweh, but what it is is the representation and the resemblance of the thing that cannot be named, which is the ineffable name.
Anyway, welcome.
>> Oh, you got I'm back. Okay. Um, yeah.
Okay. So, I'm gonna make this super fast and so I'm gonna ask uh maybe I have you both on uh Pulsonic mysticism uh so that we can have this conversation again. Uh because you know I just know that the internet gods are being weird. But maybe tomorrow I'll I'll figure it out. Um so in case I blip out again, um I just want to thank you guys uh for being amazing hosts um and amazing conversational companions. Uh so just dear my heart um I truly appreciate uh the work that you guys are doing. Now to answer the unknown god uh before the archons uh attack again. Um uh so there are so many different ways I can talk about that right this this this is why negative theology was was advanced right like the power right of understanding that that yeah when we when we know that God is not the cup or the uh the microphone or the screen uh but that also is not negative in the sense of just taking away attributes because you take away attributes to get to this this other understanding of the divine because you know we have a naive conception that God is up there with sandals and a robe and you know it's like no like then I have to imagine what penis size he has or what hair color he is [laughter] like like THAT THEY'RE LIKE OH NO GOD IS NOT a being god I don't know [laughter] >> I don't know I don't know heresy but the point is is that you know so negative theology getting us to see that all of those I mean this is why you only see the backside of God and Moses, right?
And again, if you know your antiquity, you know the ancients, even your Hebrews, even your Christians loved a good um vulgar sex joke. Uh so, so know that that's also part of getting to this unknown god. Uh as I argue, Aristophanes does it through comedy. We all the time get to this unknown god by appealing to the humor in ourselves, right? uh to to take the piss out of ourselves uh is part of saying yeah I know I'm great but I'm also this uh that we have this weird kind of both and nature and something like comedy tragedy uh anyways all of that gets to it uh but also to say look this unknown god is what we invoke when we tell every story about like when I this is why Alan can be the Christ and Christ can be the father h And I think I'm disappearing again. Am I right?
>> No, you're here.
>> You're good.
>> You're good.
>> Maybe.
>> Oh, I came back.
>> You're here.
>> Yeah. You never left. We probably left.
Maybe. I don't know.
>> Yeah. [laughter] That is so weird. Okay. Um and so yes, because you know, here when we're talking about this unknown god or this nameless god, we're also talking about a god that has many names, right? Uh this is how they referred to many of the divinities of antiquity whether it be Zeus um or Dianisis or uh Artemis and Diana or Deer and Pphanany um that we appeal to this kind of all of these they're divine names right but they're they're part of getting us to this unspoken secret this thing that we can hear without words and see without sight. Um we can close our eyes and feel uh courses through us like you know uh neurons and pathways of energy and excitement and passion and desire uh and thought right and it's all moving and changing and finally to get to the idea of likeness right um this this is key guys right that this unknown god right in both platism and Christianity we're attached through the same likeness that we just discovered in convers ation between Brandon and myself, right? Like when we were talking about what dialectic does, right? Is that it does that work of showing that there is enough likeness even in this poor body, right? That I can think and create with that unknown god as my guiding um post because there's an unknown god in me too, right? Uh and that that is so beautiful because It means >> uh that that you know the the Christians and the plaintists often thought about uh whether or not the reality [clears throat] uh absolutely always is or if there is a thing like creation uh x neilo right uh and and so that here this is for platonist the paradox it's both and right it's every time so Plato wrote the tameus as if we the world was created did in time, right? And then the plate is bigger and say, "No, no, no, it's just an allegory." But it doesn't matter. Like that's that's the key, guys.
>> You write as if, right? You are the creator. You are creating like I always use CS Lewis as an example because he created a world from these eternal ideas, right? Uh these eternal archetypes. uh one that was particularly dear, the Christ god uh and that journey um that he had with his faith um through Christianity, but still using the symbols uh of Platonism and other worlds and stepping out of the shadows and uh you know seeing the the illusions and the mirrors um as what trap us uh into thinking of God as just some guy in a robe uh waiting around for you to knock on in the pearly gates. And so >> yeah, waiting around for you to jerk off so he can throw you into hell.
[laughter] >> Horrible.
>> One thing I I like how you were saying that even you know about that some guy like sitting up on the clouds like in some form I often and you know I'm sure some people like really totally disagree with me but like even when you get to like these pagan gods even when I got into magic and stuff I was never picturing like Thor actually sitting on a cloud waiting for me to invoke him to do some stupid [ __ ] >> No, I know. But people do.
>> Yeah. No, no, no. I know. I know. But like I could never really even look when I even got into this.
>> I never looked them at them as real either.
>> Yeah. No, it's just >> Well, then then what is how do you define real? That's the that's the Socratic question. How do you find what real means?
>> Materialistic form, you know, >> right?
Well, I mean this I always give the example of Artemis as a good example of uh how it is because you know how I said the Athenians were kind of secularizing um uh the pantheon. Uh one of the things that they did was they took a very fierce deity Artemis and turned her into what I call the Katniss Everdine you know girl with a bow. Um and why do we do this? we we make, you know, these these less powerful examples, less provocative examples of the divine. I mean, Gloria Enzalda in Borderlands says this is what happened to Guadalquay, this very fierce snake goddess, you know, turned into our lady of Guadalupe. Um, because it's tamer.
And once you can tame the deities, then you can tame the people who believe in those fierce in-your-face I'm a warrior who rescues children uh kind of um uh way of being in the world.
One of the reasons why I think we have trouble identifying with almost any form of religion, whether it be, you know, pagan uh worship of Hecate or the Morgan or uh Aphroditi, uh is because uh we've turned them into caricatures. They're no long we no longer see them in their full mythological apparatus, right? We no longer see them as having philosophical systems supporting their way of being.
And we've turned them into oh goodness I think the last movie I saw with a Greek god in it. We we we turn them into movie stars rather than into Percy Jackson forces. Yeah. Percy Jackson which is great for inspiring kids to first get into the myth. Right. Don't think of Medusa actually as X Y or Z. Think of her as the thing that power in women to turn men to stone when they actually look at them. Right? And like remember that these are living principles. And it's the same with the Christ God. We water him down and make him uh what was it from dogma? Uh buddy Christ.
>> Buddy Christ. Yeah. Or or hippie Jesus.
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. The tree Jesus. Uh versus No, a man who suffered because he believed in himself. He believed in his people. He believed that he could weirdly change the world. And and that's a fierce power. And that's not tyrannical. He loved, you know, Mary and and and and and Beth and and all of his disciples and and and put himself out there as a figure um to be loved and and he wanted to help transform his community and to spread that transformation because gosh, don't we also live in a time where the political orders make it seem as if we should reject, you know, being basically good human beings, uh shut our doors, uh don't look uh don't be connected. Don't don't activate your rhetorical power because it means nothing. You're just a bag of mostly water. Uh go on with your day and be a good employee as I always say. Uh and and so Plato and other traditions uh that are have this understanding that please don't don't water us down and don't make us too relative either, right? Like this this is the kind of stuff that gets people to wake up. Animis, right? this is the that Greek invoking as Augustine would also um uh agree with of memory right remember that these myths if if if there's a spark of the divine in you and all these myths are different apparitions of the god that means the medusa is in you the Aphrodite is in you the Zeus is in you the Jesus Christ is in you right h and you have a power >> that regardless of what other people say to rock the boat to create worlds to change things. Even if you think it's small, it's that's that's what that spark is. It's a small thing, too, but whoa, it can do a lot, right? Uh, and so, um, that's another part of Planism that is very similar to Christianity is the value of what seems small like a seed or, um, a grain of sand uh, to actually be put into a poem or to be put into the ground and before you know it, it grows into something big, something that can change um, uh, the entire landscape uh, of your community and world. Uh, and so don't um ever neglect um the small things which requires you to become kind of like a scribe who will have to copy things over and over and over again if you really really want to understand.
>> Yeah. And that with that memory thing, I mean, even as you're talking about that, that's why they put Gordon Nuno to death >> was because of he wrote the book on it and how to teach people how to have a memory palace.
>> Yeah. And in doing so, you can tap in. I mean, one of the number one of the magical techniques is the magical memory. And that is before you go to bed, you should try to recollect recollect all of the things you have done throughout the day in reverse. And then as you fall asleep, you continue to do this and you are building out this magical memory to tap into whatever it is you're trying to tap into. So, I think that's really important. Another pneummonic as well.
>> Yeah. Nice. Um, is there anything else you wanted to ask, Brandon? I think maybe we'll unfortunately wrap it up now.
>> Yeah. No. Um, I mean, kind of. I think it would be cool if you already didn't didn't touch on it. This idea since we are talking about Christ Plato and the latter of light as you have it so-called not so-called as you have it named. Um the idea is that from a Platonic sense, one of the ideas is that the Christos is just like John said in the beginning was the logos or the word. The logos incarnate being Christ. This seems to be a kind of a very platonic understanding of Christ. Instead of the literal understanding of a man, it was the light incarnate or the good incarnate so to speak. So is there some way you can relate that then to this idea of platonism logos and how Christ can be manifested in that way? Oh, I mean this is one of the reasons why you can see the Greek pidea in in John, right? You can see it in in uh uh goodness uh the all the gospels in many ways uh as well as uh in Paul particularly Paul he's very uh steeped in the traditions uh that's one of the reasons why he writes letters and things like this is because these were activities of of spreading the good word. Uh so say [clears throat] your question one more time because I think I got excited about >> Yeah. No, the question is just to explain to the audience about the Christos as the logos, right? And platonism.
>> Yeah. No. And so [laughter] uh this this is absolutely one of the things like to think of the word. So the logos, right?
So this goes all the way back to Heracitis. It was picked up by the Stoics of the Logos as a kind of representation. And if you don't know, logos means word, right? uh it also means account means reason also means reckoning um all sorts of various uh different things but the point is is that when we translate it as word right we're also connecting it to basic ancient traditions like Heracletus saying that the you know every listen to the word right listen to the logos uh to a thing that really you can't hear but is something some kind of music uh that in fact helped us instructs us to see everything in flux is that is reality that all things flow, all things move, uh all things are like a child, an Aon uh playing games and then the Stoics also bring it in that there's a reason to all things and everything is ruled by fate. So that you know even that speck of dust has a contribution to being making in the grand paleological uh scheme of things and so referring to this you know God that is the word being made incarnate that that that's that is already to be in that tradition uh and that would have pricricked up the ears of your Greekspeaking um educated uh folks but in the Neopatonic tradition right and those Christians who became influenced by the neoplatonic tradition. It allows you to see that triune nature in neoplatanism where you've got the one, you've got intellect and then you've got soul. Uh but the Christians do a little thing different. What they they do is they have uh um the uh father, son, and spirit pneumatica um or the pneumatic uh element uh and and this is the will, right? But it's very very similar to the neoplatonic you know hypoatic uh layering but not actually the layering of the one right this is the this the one is the unknown god the the one that is beyond uh but within the neopatonic uh uh triad of the intellect that's actually where the Christians go ahead and take this kind of father son uh holy spirit idea in so far as there's the int intelligible level then there's the intelligible intellective level uh and then there's the int elective or the understanding uh the actual activity of return right um of this movement and so that the father is the intelligible right is the intellect and then Christ right is the reason or the word um is the coming down is the procession to the world uh and then the spirit right is the return right is the will um or that more then that is the activity of the human being to reunite uh with the divine in some neoplatanizing Christians. I'm not going to say that's uniformly uh that way uh but definitely in many they see the neoplatonic system and it's triune and it's repetition of all sorts of triune levels like if you get into your process guys you're going to have a lot of layers and a lot of triangles. So uh but uh long and the short of it is that's why Christianity spent many centuries debating the triune nature of God itself and how it can be one uh while also being many. Again a classic Greek paradox.
>> Yeah, it's beautiful. I'm reading through Procalas's take on the Tomas.
What's crazy is the Tomas is like this, but Process's book on the Tomas is [ __ ] like this big. [laughter] >> And we don't even have the complete commentary, right?
>> It's not even the complete commentary.
It's wild.
>> [gasps] >> Yeah. No, that's Yeah, that's how much is just locked within the beauty of Pltonism. And then it's like fascinating. It's like we're going to have to whole do a whole show on like how then because it's almost like we're always talking about Christianity from the older ways instead of how it's then been blasphemed to today and how we have this like supermarket idea of what Christianity is when it comes to either an Erica Kirk style of Christianity which I can't [ __ ] stand this new WWE kind of flashing lights evangelical vision of what the Christ is moving and then you get the >> gold cross around your neck and you That's [ __ ] it's crazy. Or you get the opposite which is it's like you know it's like it's you know it's it's just fascinating how all of our Abrahamic traditions have become so material. You know what I mean? Instead of this >> I I I like to call it the bless your heart church.
>> The bless your [laughter] heart oh bless your heart. I prayed for you today. I'm like I don't even think you know how to pray because you can't get out of your own [ __ ] way to do it.
>> Like well like you cursed me really.
[laughter] That's the thing. That's that's one of the reasons why I love, you know, people. My husband's Christian, uh, and very devout and, you know, a lot of my good friends are within that Christian world because that spirit of Christianity is not not beautiful, right? Like that's like this is and this is also part of how we divide our resources as communities is to say, "Ah, that's the wrong that's what Christianity did wrong, right?" And is to say, "H don't believe in the old gods." Uh, because it wanted to grow.
But unfortunately in that process it it created a paradigm uh for saying that the only way that we can be friends is if you believe in the exact same image or idea of the god versus >> hey let's just talk about I want to hear about your god right and I'm I'm I might think it's woo woo but I'm listening and maybe you'll say something that will make my light bulb go off and make me go ah your you know hag Sophia see Sophia is is is is my sibil right? Or you know, now I get it and now we're working together and as my mother would say, now we're cooking with gas [laughter] and then and and then that that that is what lights fire is, yeah, >> you know, and so whenever I meet a conservative Christian who tells me um that X, Y, or Z is not prescribed by the Bible. And then I come back with, well, did you read this Bible verse or D? And if they get, you know, annoyed with that, then I'm like, oh no, all right, let's find another way in. uh or some Christians and some uh pagan platonists are willing to engage in the theological conversation cuz that's in antiquity that was what it meant to be part of these traditions. And unfortunately, you live in a culture that says don't talk about any of these things. That's heady intellectual stuff. Uh only professors uh can can do that. I'm like [laughter] dude, I was a bartender in New Orleans.
uh had no I had two pennies to my name.
Um and so if I could do this, so can you. Uh and and so let's let's start remembering that that again we can all get to this level of understanding the things that we believe. Um some of us it's going to take more work than others. Um but you know what? Let's prove it to people that we can we can get there. Um when we focus on those small things uh that can develop the human spirit into doing that work uh that the early Christians and late pagans and people who were carrying that torch by writing books and uh creating libraries and universities and schools and spreading the word uh whether it be um in [clears throat] you know dire straits because you were forced by the pope to go uh but now you have to watch your homie uh you know sack villages and you're like I just wanted to carry this book somewhere. Um so uh in any case uh yeah so [clears throat] yeah the world is yeah the world is what it is and one of the things I really want to see is people debating again um about that.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> No, I agree. Yeah. Nick and I keep wanting to put together a bunch of debates with people.
At least I talk about it all the time and all >> I'm just afraid sometimes that people not you but the other person could get a little crazy.
>> Yeah. Well, I'm thinking about putting together a summit on, you know, reforming education, uh, where, you know, it means that that's part of what we want to do is like return to the old style where, you know, Brandon and I could, you know, just suddenly >> disagree and then have different arguments and uh, and then, you know, Cardinal Electric is going to have to come in and [laughter] >> I love that. I'm in. Let's go. I'm in because I think it's really important because it's through the debate the the conversation that we find common ground and also find where maybe I don't know as much as I thought I knew or or or you get you get to see how I am a sophist because I can't explain my certain theories that I have.
>> But we're all sophist in some area. Like when you asked me the questions uh about uh the saraphin and the tribun I was like oh god I haven't read about that in years [laughter] and we're gonna be able to answer this question. Um, but then realizing that that was, you know, that's part of gaining those skills, right? It's like, look, I would be a sophist if I knew how to talk about the levels of that. Uh, and so let's make sure you figure out where in his question you actually have a way in and that not be manipulation.
That is part of being skilled uh in these things. And and that's and then also to be able to have that honesty, that transparency of like, look, it's good to know when you don't know, when you're ignorant. uh it doesn't mean you're a sophist right it means that you know and are aware of your limitations and you're ready as Socrates was in the time to pass the baton to somebody else.
>> Yeah.
>> So yeah >> I no I love that.
>> Yeah that was great. Thank you very much.
>> You guys are so much fun. So thank you so much and I really appreciate >> I love having you on. No for real for real future.
>> You crush Danielle. You crush.
>> I promise I'll do my best to detain the archons.
>> [laughter] >> for next time. So, >> thank you. No, I appreciate it. Um, yeah. Uh, so yeah, we're going to wrap it up. Um, Brandon, real quick, let everybody know you weren't here at the beginning either. So, what's up, [clears throat] they can find all your amazing work.
>> Of course, as you all know out there, Brandon Lee of Maggus in the media. Go over to YouTube X, Instagram. Um, I've been saying I'm putting on Apple and Spotify. I am doing that. It will be an audio podcast. You will find me everywhere. Magus in the media, myth, magic, and meaning in the stories that we love. So yeah, check it all out.
Subscribe, like, and share. Coming out with Lon Milo's um interview that I did with him over the next few days. Alan Chapman as well. I'm going to be interviewing Mark Booth next week on his new book, The Secret History of the Universe. That man is brilliant and his books are fantastic. changing our ways from thinking of uh the world as material to the idea instead. As we all know, the magical worldview needs the idea first, consciousness, and then everything blooms forth from that. So, and again, as always, check out my interview that I did with Danielle on Magnus in the media. It was fantastic.
She's fantastic. Go check out Palanode Productions, Kora, and everything her and her fantastic art team are doing trying to bring philosophy from the ivory tower back to the people. Thank you, Danielle.
>> Yeah, thank you guys. It was a pleasure.
>> Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat] No, of course. And thank you very much for making it, man. My my >> and Danielle Danielle Lane, please let everybody know where they can find all your amazing work and remind people of uh your productions, the Palenoid.
>> Yeah. So, uh yeah, I'm Danielle Lane and I'm uh just happy to be here with you guys talking these amazing things. Uh but we also have a great team uh at Palenoid Productions making uh other podcasts. Even Brandon and I are considering doing uh philosophy podcast that just uh uh talks about uh the various different philosophical aspects and esoteric aspects of your uh your favorite films and things like this. Uh and then we have a Substack. Uh we have a Discord channel and uh yeah, we're part of this revolution of creating uh the internet done otherwise. Uh so that we can recreate those brickandmortar community spaces that remind us that every human being has the potential to be more than just a bag of mostly water.
And so yeah, have the fun. Be the good.
>> That's awesome. [laughter] Thank you very much. Good luck on that. That sounds awesome. Really?
>> Thank you.
>> Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Um, thank you again both of you for coming on. Thank you everybody in the chat. Thank you for the questions. Good questions. I appreciate it. That's why I go live.
Plus, I just like seeing the comments and what people want to add. And uh, yeah, that is the end of another Recall Rejects. And until the next one, everybody, be well. Later.
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