Higher realms of thought
Or how the thoughts of some very long gone Greeks,
Romans and others, apply to the modern day Craft
As a student in college I came to love my classes of the old masters on Philosophy.
But I had made their acquaintance,; long before that.
Now
I am sure your asking yourself ,what has the thoughts of; people like;
Socrates, Plato, Kant ...
and
many others have to do with the Craft ?
It has to do with how we as a people think.
These men formed the basis behind how we currently look at the world.
The
realms of science, and more ...on how we look at esoteric thoughts,
;These
things owe their beginnings to these men of vision.
These
things were always there .. but these guys tried to work it all out
and
put it down in words... in recent time for the western world
Now a great many pages you will see on the web on this subject are deep enough and complex
enough, that a fast read of the first page is enough
to make most people go...
BYE BYE
Well
ya won't get that here..
..for those
who want
to take off their shoes and dive in...
there
will be links to take them to places to get their feet wet..
But for the rest who are here to see how
these long gone guys relate to the practice of the Craft in brief.
Read on...
If you have read my other pages on Meditation, Chakras, the Cabala etc...
you have an idea of how thought influences action.The works by the old guys
are the basis behind that framework.
For example:
Protagoras
who
said
" Man
is the measure of all truth "
Meaning
a mans reasoning ability is how we should
measure something's reality or worth.
As
we of the Craft are told again and again to accept nothing
(
not even from me..) on faith alone ,but by the work of the mind
and
proving to the self the truth of something.
Or this one:
Socrates
:Taught that
" The
only true knowledge is a knowledge by means of concepts "
Which
meant in simple terms.. A chair is not a thing of wood or stone, on which
we sit, it is the concept ,
an
idea of the chair which matters .. not the object we refer to.; Which has
only a transitory life, before it becomes dust,
the
same goes for everything else we call concrete reality.
So
the step in the Craft to "unreality" the world of form and thought ,
;which
we enter while doing ritual....would have made Socrates smile.
As
it's the only reality out there, he would; have said.
Or his student:
Plato
Took
this as a principle of Being.
"
If the concept represents all the reality of things, the reality must be
something in the ideal order,
not
necessarily in the things themselves, but rather above them, in a world
by itself."
Which is Socrates world of forms.
Again
as
above so below, as we would say...there is
an order
and
we of the Craft access this realm of order
that
is above the material realm of matter
in
the working of the Craft.
Or how about this guy:
Immanuel Kant
"
The
material of our sense knowledge comes from experience. The form, however,
is not derived
through
the senses, The most important forms of sense knowledge, the conditions,
in fact, of all sensation,
are
space and time."
In
other words... again the world of forms and ideas..
which
is the most important ,as it is the only one
that
is really real..
Now don't that boggle the mind just a tad :)
This
the same thing we do when we transcend the here and now by
"
standing in a place outside of time and space...
in
the circle of power where sensation of the mundane...has no sway."
By the Mothers Grace :) this is the essence of the rites and the Craft
Or another well known:
Aristotle
"
The
highest form is that of the Good,
which
is the ultimate basis of all the rest,
and
the first cause of being and knowledge.
Ideas
derived from the impressions of the senses
can
never give us the knowledge of true being --
i.e.
of the forms. It can only be obtained
by
the soul's activity within itself.
;There
is nothing in the world with
any
independent existence:
all
is bound together by
an
inalterable chain of causation."
;
The
world of the here and now can only be held in our hands...
but
to make contact with the divine we must leave; that and go after
the
real deal...the space where the reality of things exists.
Neoplatonism
( And
no it does not stand for something current as in new the word is
new but it stands for
Neo
Plato = Platonic philosophy as studied in the 3rd century AD, after Plato's
death, till about 567 CE )
The idea that all things are one and related to each other:
.
At the summit of existence stands the One or the Good,
as
the source of all things. It creates from itself, reason,
which
contains the infinite store of ideas.
The
Soul, the copy of reason, creates matter...
which,
constitutes bodies ,which contain the soul.
Nature, therefore, is a whole, endowed with life and soul.
The
Soul, being chained to matter, longs to escape from the bondage of the
body and return to its original source.
In
virtue and philosophic thought soul has the power to elevate itself above
the reason into a state of ecstasy
,
where it can behold, or ascend up to,
that
one good primary Being,; whom reason
(
meaning the senses of the mind...)
cannot
know.
Even
thou they were fatalists, who felt the world was a place to escape from
if
you ignore that....the concepts are still valid for us today.
The
way of the force would fit right in here without a hiccup.
as
it's where the idea came from to begin with
That
all things are side by side in form, time and space,
that
there is no empty space , so all things are interrelated...
And
that the reality of a person.. is not the crude matter
of
which they are made .. but the spirit which is eternal
and
rejoins the light when it's time in the vessel of the body is done.
But
unlike the fatalist sophists
we
are in no hurry to get there...:)
Then there is the Philosophy across the ocean
of our Eastern Brethren
The Tao Te Ching : or the way
The
Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao.
The
name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The
nameless is the origin of heaven and earth
While
naming is the origin of the myriad things.
Therefore,
always desireless, you see the mystery
While the Tao was a guideline on what makes a sage.....
;The
concept that the Tao is nameless, formless,
the
force that binds the universe together..
sound
familiar..?; And much much more...
Yoda
and Buddha would have gotten along just fine don't ya think ? :)
To a good translation I have posted..
Tao De Ching
One of the best sites I have seen..
from where the above page comes..
details most the Elder philosophers from all walks of life...
from the ancient Greek to the way of Tao
..for
the serious ... take a walk through
this
excellent teaching site in its entirety
http://www.fred.net/tzaka/shadows.html
Which
they entitled East Meets West...
or
Shadows on the wall..
By
reading this one page alone .
with
even a few of its out links...cover to cover as it were..
you
will arrive at a basic understanding
of
how the world of the "great" thinkers evolved.
From
the Greek... to the Roman..to the Medieval ....
to
the Way of Buddhism and the Tao..
.and
how they influenced how
WE
currently think
and
feel about our world..
And our practice of faith...
I
think that if you give all a read with an open mind
you
will end the read with
Oh WoW !!!
As the revelations may surprise you
For
a very large repository
on
hermetic and mystical thought see:
a
very well made site
http://www.plotinus.com/index.html
For
a very good resource for those who want to know more:
The
internet encyclopedia of greek philosophy
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/g/greekphi.htm#Aristotle
I hope this page gives you an idea of classical thought
and how it relates to the Craft and how we ...
as a people, think about our world and how it all works. ..at least some of us...:)
For
those who are interested enough
to
study the matter more ...
I
wish you happy hunting
and
an open mind to new ways of thought.
Enjoy
yourself..
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;
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