Zhongyongdaoist

You shouldn't leave ancient Egypt out of the running here, and as usual references to Plato are distortions that arise in part because of explanations given in scholarly work about how Plato contributed to Cartesian dualism, an ontological dualism that historically has more to do with the reintroduction of Epicureanism to European thinking than anything Plato said. Epicureanism by the way is proof that, as the ancestor to modern materialistic monism, monistic thinking is not good in itself. There is naturally a lot more that I could say about this, including that it is a good idea to define ones terms a little better than has been done here, though the type of Dualism that seems to be intended here is the type of moral dualism implied by distinctions between "Good" and "Evil", and not Descartes distinction between Mind and Matter. If I have time I will contribute further to the discussion. ZYD

There is more to Synesius than Platonic disagreements with Christian dogma. This is an abstract from an article on Synesius: Synesius of Cyrene and the American “Synesii” I haven't read the article yet because I only just came across it, but I will try to get a look at it shortly. He also wrote a book on dreams and their spiritual meaning which can be down loaded here: Synesius on Dreams ZYD

This post of mine should be read in the light of the previous three, and then the following article link which I found looking for things which might make some of this clearer should be followed it gives some insight into Plato's influence which even survives into the present day, such as St. Valentine's Day, and its medieval precursor Courtly Love: The Ancient Story at the Origin of Modern Romantic Love The famous "Ladder of Love" is the crowning glory of Plato’s Symposium. " Jesus may have spoken Greek and might have come under the direct or indirect influence of Platonism. But even if he did not, the later Church sought to align Christian theology with classical philosophy—and Christian love, more properly called charity, and originally directed at God, began to blur with something much more individualistic." Ideas like these occurred to me in the early 80s after I first read Plato's Symposium and his Phaedrus. I hope this gives some insight into Plato's long lasting influence, which certainly influenced Hellenistic Judaism. ZYD

Finally, I will add this short discussion of Plato's quasi Tantric doctrine of Liberation through Eros: Of particular relevance to this thread are the dialogues which contain concepts which can only be described as “proto-tantric” in the sense of harnessing Eros to the task of spiritual development. To go back to another quote from ralis: Well, Plato gives teachings which he claims will liberate one from rebirth in three lifetimes. Who would have thought? Certainly not 99.44% of the people to whom I bring up the idea of Plato as a source of “mystical” doctrines. Of course it is possible that the "full enlightenment" mentioned above may not be the same as freedom from rebirth. By the way, I don't necessarily accept or reject either claim. Claims of freedom from rebirth like like those of immortality, which end when you die, end when you are reborn, and there really is no way to evaluate them. I have added the emphasis above which is not in the original. ZYD

Here is the longer post which I promised to post above: The one category of enlightened people is able to comprehend God through a vision beyond the physical universe. It is as though they advanced on a heavenly ladder and conjectured the existence of God through an inference (Praem. 40). The other category apprehends him through himself, as light is seen by light. For God gave man such a perception "as should prove to him that God exists, and not to show him what God is." Philo believes that even the existence of God "cannot possibly be contemplated by any other being; because, in fact, it is not possible for God to be comprehended by any being but himself " (Praem. 39-40). Philo adds, "Only men who have raised themselves upward from below, so as, through the contemplation of his works, to form a conjectural conception of the Creator by a probable train of reasoning" (Praem. 43) are holy, and are his servants. Next Philo explains how such men have an impression of God's existence as revealed by God himself, by the similitude of the sun (Mut. 4-6) a concept which he borrowed from Plato. As light is seen in consequence of its own presence so, "In the same manner God, being his own light, is perceived by himself alone, nothing and no other being co-operating with or assisting him, a being at all able to contribute to pure comprehension of his existence; But these men have arrived at the real truth, who form their ideas of God from God, of light from light" (Praem. 45-46). As Plato and Philo had done, Plotinus later used this image of the sun. Thus the Logos, eternally created (begotten), is an expression of the immanent powers of God, and at the same time, it emanates into everything in the world. (Emphasis mine, ZYD) Here we see important ideas and images that appear in both orthodox and Gnostic thought, such as the Logos, Trinity, light etc., and this is hardly an single icicle from the tip of the iceberg. I hope that these rather long excerpts are helpful. I hope that this and the post above it are helpful ZYD

I had originally thought I might comment in this thread but I have been busy and as I have watched it grow into an unwieldy pile of nonsense I have been less and less likely to do so, but since SirPalamedes has been generous enough to cite me as someone who might be able to shed light on Platonism in the period I will post something that I had thought of a while back as a possible contribution: I have added emphasis to the above, the links in it are important and I also decided that I would also post an excerpt from a longer post in the same thread which deals in particular with Philo of Alexandria. I will follow this post as quickly as possible. ZYD

The whole problem with this topic is that it is based on the flimsiest speculation which is then elaborated on in ways that are anachronistic and largely ignorant of what was going on in Judea and the larger Jewish world during the period that Jesus lived. I have made a lot of posts about the period and I will do some searching and pull them together for posting here. I am busy today, but I should have something to say by tomorrow. ZYD

Well, since I have been mentioned already, my formal presence here may not be amiss. In my introductory post: Hello, they tell me I can do stand-up... I had this to say about my studies: Since a lot of posts, complete with pretty pictures, have been made since my name was first mentioned, it may take me a bit to orient myself and see how and where I might be able to add something useful or interesting and preferably both. ZYD

If by Zhong, you mean me, I prefer ZYD, as I note in my signature "Zhongyongdaoist AKA ZYD it's easier to type", aside from that, thank you for your generous appraisal of my contributions to the thread. In one of my posts in this thread I bring up the notion of "formal cause" and I want to expand on it a little bit because it is a very important concept useful in thinking about both Chinese and Western traditions: And In traditional Western magic as expounded in the work of Cornelius Agrippa for example, the idea of Formal Cause is central to the doctrine of "Occult Virtues" an aspect of the tradition much neglected by the Nineteenth Century revival of magic. In a post which I made sometime back I examine this in detail: and related to such Daoist concepts as Wuwei here: As the above posts develop they examine the idea of Formal Cause and how it relates to the topics. I hope these posts will be interesting and informative. ZYD

Here is something else to make time for: I focused on Information theory specifically after reading Bernard d'Espagnat's 1979 Scientific American article: The Quantum Theory and Reality, which brought home to me the mystery and importance of entanglement. I hadn't thought about it much since high school and then had reached a primitive pilot wave model for quantum mechanics, however, d'Espanat's article revealed the short comings of such an approach. Though the newer approach of quantum steering seems to me to be very promising and also very compatible with the notion of formal causes. If you, or other Dao Bums are interested there is a more technical introduction here: Quantum Steering: Practical Challenges and Future Directions This is the abstract: I hope this the above is interesting and informative. ZYD

I was happy to see Infolad1 back and posting his usual interesting posts, in this case emphasizing information theory: I have posted on the importance of information theory before, but there hasn't been much interest in such things for a while, many of our more scientific types left in the "Great Schism", fortunately some have returned. Here is one of my posts in which I bring point out what I consider an important aspect of information theory: Yes, very nice iain, what it has to do with akasha is another thing entirely, but that there is some relation to traditional concepts is certainly a possible extrapolation, and I would like to point out another traditional concept for which there is ample, what we might call meta-evidence, and that is the concept of "Formal Cause", a concept put forward by Aristotle, but strongly related to Plato's "Doctrine of Ideas". In his essay "Concepts of Cause in the Development of Physics", which can be found in a collection of his essays The Essential Tension, starting on page 21, Thomas Kuhn argues that while the notion of "formal causes" was explicitly rejected by the nascent "Scientific Revolution" in the Seventeenth Century, it has consistently worked its way back into physics in the progressive mathematization of physics since 1700. The interesting thing is that this reintroduction of formal causes as mathematics actually moves the concept more in the direction of Plato than Aristotle would have liked. I looked seriously at the implications of the double split experiment back circa 1980 and it was one of my reasons for adopting Platonism as my general working model of the world. I also made a conjecture at that time that information theory (in a sense an instantiation of Plato's "ideas") would allow the unification of physics which would solve the particle/wave problem. Physics has certainly opened up in that direction, but it has a ways to go. I hope this is interesting and informative. ZYD

Sorry, but I was in a rush and the matter is basically trivia, and not something to which I devote the type of time and energy which I put into my serious posts. So on his 431st, Birthday Cornelius Agrippa was scientist of the day. ZYD

I read this book decades ago. From my own understanding of laboratory alchemy and the description in the book of Newton's alchemy he was quite wrong in his approach, but I don't wish at this time too get into a more detailed response on that, though if enough people are interested when I have time I may expand on this matter. As an amusing coincidence I was doing a search on Agrippa today and discovered that on this libraries site, Cornelius Agrippa was the "Scientist of the Day". I don't know if the link will change tomorrow, but I did want let everyone know that he was so honored today. Linda Hall Library News Scientist of the Day Cornelius Agrippa ZYD

Lynn Thorndyke didn't call his, literally exhaustive, eight volume history of science: A History of Magic and Experimental Science For no reason, he did it because he had to. By the way, my much used and well worn copy of the Key of Solomon, refers to its magical operations as experiments. Historically magic and also alchemy, were basically the "experiment science" of Philosophy, largely that of Plato and Aristotle, as it existed in antiquity and through the Renaissance and into early modern times. ZYD

Since the OP liked my post, I thought I would put in this link to my posts on Wuwei: A Science of Wu Wei? I don't have much time to post in much detail on this thread, but the post linked above should give a good idea of what I talking about by thinking of Wuwei as the action of a formal cause. I hope the posts are interesting and informative. ZYD

Regarding this: Think Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem. That's what I did when I was a teenager and was trying to understand the Dao de Jing back in the late sixties. and this: Want to understand something like Wuwei? Think in terms of the the Unmoved Mover as the Unchanged Changer, a wider meaning set for the Greek work Kinesis, and think of the difference between normal action "wei" and "wuwei" "non action" as the difference between Aristotle's efficient and formal causes as I did in a series of posts analyzing Wuwei a couple of years ago. With of the right knowledge and some creative thinking most of these "mystereies", can be translated into terms that are somewhat more understandable. Interested in knowing more? Let me know. ZYD

I did a quick search and they seem to be different. ZYD

I'm glad that you found the tread interesting. Now you can see why I consider Confucianism so misunderstood. One of the reasons I recommended it was your comments about how you liked the Japanese Zen approach which was more open to family life, etc., than was a more strictly Chinese one. It's been a long time, but if I am remembering correctly when Buddhism was introduced to Japan the Confucians were particularly open to, and interested in it. If I can find any references to this I will let you know. I am thinking of one book in particular, which you may find interesting anyway. Confucianism is a philosophical system and not a religion, therefore Confucians can have varied beliefs and practices, as well as the meditative and qigong practices that are part of that system. I view Confucianism as a type of mystical humanism, very much in contrast to modern "secular humanism". ZYD

I suspect Bai Xi is using a bad computer translator for Chinese to English and doesn't realize how bad it is because their own English is limited. I see some of the mistakes in it that I often see in chat where people who can write much more clearly than Bai Xi make simple mistakes in pronouns, word order and usage, etc. Bai Xi may in fact have a lot of interesting things to talk about, but unfortunately not a good way to put them into understandable English. ZYD

I have a copy of the book reviewed below and believe it may be a useful read for anyone interested in the background of the Chrisitan appropriation of Plato and other aspects of Greek philosophy. I could only find the beginning of the review, but I think it gives enough of an idea of the books scope and potential usefulness. I hope this information is interesting and useful. ZYD

Based on what you say above, you might find my posts in Confucian Qi gong interesting: The topic was started by our wonderful friend in the Dao, exorcist_1699, and I contributed to it. Confucianism is one of the most misunderstood Chinese philosophical schools in the West. I decided to investigate it in 2000 and I am glad that I did, it provides a useful framework, and actually complimented my years of studying and practicing Ritual Daoism and Western magic. I hope that you find the discussion and my contribution to it interesting and more importantly, useful. ZYD

Did you know Jiyu Kennet Roshi? In the period from 1975 to 80 a student of hers and I were good friends down here in Southern California. We had many interesting discussions.

More like voodoo than you might think. The Chinese have a long history of Spirit Boxing in which a spirit or god takes possession of the boxer and guides him in the appropriate moves to learn the art as well as providing a boost to the boxer's qi. Back around 1970 when I was first starting to research Chinese martial arts, I found adds for the Green Dragon Society. I wrote to get their catalog and more information and was astonished to find them talking about spirit boxing involving spirit possession by the "spirits" of the eight trigrams. Since I had started serious reading about magic, voodoo, Tibetan yoga, etc. as early as 1963, I was already familiar with the idea of spirit possession, but the idea of its application to martial arts training was completely new to me. I never followed up with it because my Western magical training, already well advanced and successful by that time, disapproved of spirit possession. I hope this information is interesting and helpful, ZYD

I'll certainly contribute here as time allows. My first contribution will be to the notion of who and what Jesus was, First of all in regard to this: What if Jesus was a Magician to begin with? As I posted here, there are strong reasons to take the idea seriously: I hope this is an interesting and helpful addition to this discussion. ZYD

The "official line" on all such interests in spiritual or occult matters is always to dismiss it. I am most familiar with how the involement of W. B. Yeats with the Golden Dawn is dismissed by Yeats' scholars because of their own biased judgement that "The poet whom I love and admire so much cannot be an occultist wackdoodle, but must be a materialist reductionist just like me". This bias shows up often on Dao Bums too, the now deceased member, Marblehead, who thought this way about Laozi as author of the Dao De Jing was a perfect example of this attitude. The intellectual history behind these attitudes is quite interesting and I have posted some on Dao Bums about it, but I will not burden this post with more on that now. I have already done my lengthy Dao Bums post of the day. ZYD