A synchronicity and a reading list
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pathsandcirclesFirstly, the reading list, from a comment left by user "readoldthings" regarding Platonism, neo and otherwise, in a Magic Monday from about a month ago, which I'm reposting here for my own future reference, and in case, in a community dedicated to working with material from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it's helpful in following up with one of the sources of hermeticism:
"So I recommend two things. First, make sure that the translations that you get include a glossary, which tells you what Greek word is being rendered by what English word, and what the Greek word actually means. The word sometimes translated as "reason," for example, is actually "nous." It means much more than reason-- and other others won't translate it as "reason" but, rather, as "Intellect," "Divine Mind," or even "Angelic Mind." If you know what nous means, you'll be able to identify it in any of its later English disguises and know what is actually being discussed.
Second, even with a glossary, it is very helpful to have a guide. Fortuntaely for you, one is now available. If you go to YouTube, you'll find a whole series of lectures done in the 90s by a philosopher named Pierre Grimes. Look for "Pierre Grimes Philosophical Research Society." Grimes has lectures on many of Plato's most important dialogues as well as his predecessors like Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales and so on and his successors including Plotinus and Proclus. (Not Iamblichus, who was still largely ignored in the 1990s.) I've found that it was helpful, when approaching any particular text, to start by listening to Grimes's talk on it.
As for reading order, it's worth noting that there was a traditional order for reading Plato's dialogues in Iamblichus's school. It went like so:
Alcibiades,
Gorgias,
Phaedo,
Cratylus,
Theaetetus,
Sophist,
Statesman,
Phaedrus,
Symposium,
Philebus,
which are then crowned with Timaeus and Parmenides.
You'll notice that the Republic is absent. I would recommend actually starting with the Republic, with Grimes's lectures as a guide. That will do a good job of immersing you in Platonic thought, and then you can tackle the remaining dialogues one at a time. like JMG, I'd suggest moving in order from Plotinus to Iamblichus to Proclus, with one exception-- I started with Proclus's Elements of Theology, and you might want to as well. It's much shorter than the Enneads or than anything else that Proclus ever wrote, and provides a very helpful summary of Platonic thinking in general."
Now for the synchronicity: in working my way through Paths of Wisdom, I've just finished the third-stage meditations on the Path of Hod. Of an evening last week, I found myself listening somewhat at random to the contents of a youtube channel devoted to various kinds of traditional music, and came across a couple of songs from a collection of reconstructed Ancient Greek music. This isn't a style I'm completely unfamiliar with, and it's not ordinarily particularly my cup of tea, but for some reason that evening something clicked in the listening- the music moved me in a way that nothing of it's style ever had before, and with this came what felt like a sudden intuitive grasp or "feel" for how the Greeks interacted with and experienced the world (in particular, how things we tend to think of as barren philosophical abstractions must have seemed vivid and real and almost embodied to them in a way we have a hard time understanding), and it left me with a strong desire to read some Platonic/Neoplatonic philosophy. The very next night, I came across the comment posted I reposted above. Went back again a little bit later to look up the source of the music that had moved me so, and what did it turn out to be? What else but a setting of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes! In general my devotional practice is fairly strictly and explicitly Christian, and haven't been particularly attentive to or even comfortable with the more quasi-polytheistic end of this kind of work, but it's hard to deny that, quite unexpectedly from my end, this felt a lot like pretty direct communication!
"So I recommend two things. First, make sure that the translations that you get include a glossary, which tells you what Greek word is being rendered by what English word, and what the Greek word actually means. The word sometimes translated as "reason," for example, is actually "nous." It means much more than reason-- and other others won't translate it as "reason" but, rather, as "Intellect," "Divine Mind," or even "Angelic Mind." If you know what nous means, you'll be able to identify it in any of its later English disguises and know what is actually being discussed.
Second, even with a glossary, it is very helpful to have a guide. Fortuntaely for you, one is now available. If you go to YouTube, you'll find a whole series of lectures done in the 90s by a philosopher named Pierre Grimes. Look for "Pierre Grimes Philosophical Research Society." Grimes has lectures on many of Plato's most important dialogues as well as his predecessors like Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales and so on and his successors including Plotinus and Proclus. (Not Iamblichus, who was still largely ignored in the 1990s.) I've found that it was helpful, when approaching any particular text, to start by listening to Grimes's talk on it.
As for reading order, it's worth noting that there was a traditional order for reading Plato's dialogues in Iamblichus's school. It went like so:
Alcibiades,
Gorgias,
Phaedo,
Cratylus,
Theaetetus,
Sophist,
Statesman,
Phaedrus,
Symposium,
Philebus,
which are then crowned with Timaeus and Parmenides.
You'll notice that the Republic is absent. I would recommend actually starting with the Republic, with Grimes's lectures as a guide. That will do a good job of immersing you in Platonic thought, and then you can tackle the remaining dialogues one at a time. like JMG, I'd suggest moving in order from Plotinus to Iamblichus to Proclus, with one exception-- I started with Proclus's Elements of Theology, and you might want to as well. It's much shorter than the Enneads or than anything else that Proclus ever wrote, and provides a very helpful summary of Platonic thinking in general."
Now for the synchronicity: in working my way through Paths of Wisdom, I've just finished the third-stage meditations on the Path of Hod. Of an evening last week, I found myself listening somewhat at random to the contents of a youtube channel devoted to various kinds of traditional music, and came across a couple of songs from a collection of reconstructed Ancient Greek music. This isn't a style I'm completely unfamiliar with, and it's not ordinarily particularly my cup of tea, but for some reason that evening something clicked in the listening- the music moved me in a way that nothing of it's style ever had before, and with this came what felt like a sudden intuitive grasp or "feel" for how the Greeks interacted with and experienced the world (in particular, how things we tend to think of as barren philosophical abstractions must have seemed vivid and real and almost embodied to them in a way we have a hard time understanding), and it left me with a strong desire to read some Platonic/Neoplatonic philosophy. The very next night, I came across the comment posted I reposted above. Went back again a little bit later to look up the source of the music that had moved me so, and what did it turn out to be? What else but a setting of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes! In general my devotional practice is fairly strictly and explicitly Christian, and haven't been particularly attentive to or even comfortable with the more quasi-polytheistic end of this kind of work, but it's hard to deny that, quite unexpectedly from my end, this felt a lot like pretty direct communication!
