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”

Quote

This article explores the Hellenic/Christian synthesis of bishop Synesius and its later influence, especially on nineteenth-century America. Synesius accepted a bishopric despite Neoplatonic reservations concerning Christian doctrine: the uncreated soul pre-exists; the uncreated cosmos is eternal; and the “resurrection” an ineffable mystery, beyond the vulgar. Whether or not born a Christian, his study under Hypatia brought about a conversion to “pagan” Neoplatonism. His attempted synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity was unique, unlike that of any other late antique Christian Platonist. Later, Renaissance thinkers scanned a new religious horizon reviving Hellenic Neoplatonism, Hermetic thought, Pythagoreanism, etc., included in a “primordial revelation,” contemporaneous with the Mosaic revelation and thereby in harmony with Christianity. In Romantic-era England, Thomas Taylor revived Hellenic Neoplatonism as the “true” religion, in the spirit of the anti-Christian theurgic Neoplatonist Roman emperor, Julian. Taylor had a significant influence on the American “Synesii,” Transcendentalists and Neoplatonists, e.g., on Bronson Alcott’s Platonic/Pythagorean lifestyle. Reading Taylor’s translations, Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke of the “Trismegisti” whose Neoplatonic religion predated and superseded “parvenu” Christianity. Later Transcendentalists continued the work of Taylor, sympathizing with late antique “pagan” Neoplatonism, but, in the spirit of Synesius, synthesizing it with Christianity and with other religions. They sought a non-sectarian, universal “cosmic theism,” notably through Thomas M. Johnson’s journal, The Platonist , which included translations of Synesius and other Neoplatonists. One of its contributors, Alexander Wilder, also influenced Theosophy on its Neoplatonic side. More recent Anglophone “Synesii” include Hilary Armstrong, who was a major presence in Neoplatonic scholarship, both in the UK and North America. He argued for a return to Hellenic inclusive monotheism, in which a Christian Platonist, like himself, could also venerate Hindu or Isis’ holy images as being true reflections of the divine.

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:

On 6/21/2016 at 3:20 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

First in regard to Plato, elsewhere on the Dao Bums I have said about the studies which I undertook in the late seventies to understand Plato and his influence on Renaissance Occult Philosophy, which involved my reading a great deal of the secondary scholarly literature on Plato and classical philosophy before turning to read the dialogues themselves:
 

On 8/26/2015 at 9:38 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

Nothing in the secondary literature really prepared me for all the details of the dialogues themselves, many of which were very interesting from an esoteric point of view, but I will get to that later in this series.

 

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:
 

 

On 6/14/2016 at 5:31 PM, ralis said:

When I took my first so called initiation way back in 1987, Lama Rinchen said that I was guaranteed full enlightenment in seven lifetimes.

 

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:

On 10/14/2017 at 11:51 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I was addressing where Jesus may have gotten these "higher doctrines", and how they may have related to the Old Testament.  Most people in general and especially around here have just about no idea what Greek philosophy or Plato is about and its connection with Hellenistic Spirituality and I have to say that the connection came as quit a surprise to me, as I have noted elsewhere on the Dao Bums.  I had read about and studied Western Magic, Qabalah, Tibetan Buddhism, Daoism and qigong for fifteen or so years before, in an effort to understand aspects of the Western tradition, I seriously turned my attention to Plato and the Platonists, so that I read these things with different eyes than the scholars whose works I was reading.  It would take too much time to recount both the reasons why I undertook this study and how much that it changed my attitude about a lot of things, but I will address at least some of how this affects the way that Hellenized Jews viewed what we not call "the Old Testament"

 

In my discussion of Jewish adaptations of Plato I mentioned Philo of Alexandria, and he is very important as a contemporary of all of the founders of Christianity, because of the possible influence of thinking like his on their own thought and action.  As moderns we tend to view the "Old Testament" in a certain way, and mostly thanks to the Protestant Reformation most of us tend to view it as something to be interpreted literally.  This is not how Hellenized Jews thought of it, they had no problems with doing the same type of thing to the Torah as Greeks routinely did to their mythology, they interpreted it as allegories of higher spiritual realities and not as something to be taken literally.  In short they did everything thy could to read Plato and Aristotle into the Torah to get something that they could be proud of, out of it.

 

Here are some excerpts from the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy's article on Philo:

 

Quote

11. Doctrine of the Logos in Philo's Writings

The pivotal and the most developed doctrine in Philo's writings on which hinges his entire philosophical system, is his doctrine of the Logos. By developing this doctrine he fused Greek philosophical concepts with Hebrew religious thought and provided the foundation for Christianity, first in the development of the Christian Pauline myth and speculations of John, later in the Hellenistic Christian Logos and Gnostic doctrines of the second century. All other doctrines of Philo hinge on his interpretation of divine existence and action. The term Logos was widely used in the Greco-Roman culture and in Judaism. Through most schools of Greek philosophy, this term was used to designate a rational, intelligent and thus vivifying principle of the universe. This principle was deduced from an understanding of the universe as a living reality and by comparing it to a living creature. Ancient people did not have the dynamic concept of "function," therefore, every phenomenon had to have an underlying factor, agent, or principle responsible for its occurrence. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament the term logos (Hebrew davar) was used frequently to describe God's utterances (Gen. 1:3, 6,9; 3:9,11; Ps. 32:9), God's action (Zech. 5:1-4; Ps. 106:20; Ps. 147:15), and messages of prophets by means of which God communicated his will to his people (Jer. 1:4-19, 2:1-7; Ezek. 1:3; Amos 3:1). Logos is used here only as a figure of speech designating God's activity or action. In the so-called Jewish wisdom literature we find the concept of Wisdom (hokhmah and sophia) which could be to some degree interpreted as a separate personification or individualization (hypostatization), but it is contrasted often with human stupidity. In the Hebrew culture it was a part of the metaphorical and poetic language describing divine wisdom as God's attribute and it clearly refers to a human characteristic in the context of human earthly existence. The Greek, metaphysical concept of the Logos is in sharp contrast to the concept of a personal God described in anthropomorphic terms typical of Hebrew thought. Philo made a synthesis of the two systems and attempted to explain Hebrew thought in terms of Greek philosophy by introducing the Stoic concept of the Logos into Judaism. In the process the Logos became transformed from a metaphysical entity into an extension of a divine and transcendental anthropomorphic being and mediator between God and men. Philo offered various descriptions of the Logos.

 

f. Immanent Reason

The reasoning capacity of a human mind is but a portion of the all-pervading Divine Logos. Mind is a special gift to humans from God and it has divine essence, therefore, as such, it is imperishable. By receiving this humans received freedom and the power of spontaneous will free from necessity (Deus. 47). Philo emphasizes that man "has received this one extraordinary gift, intellect, which is accustomed to comprehend the nature of all bodies and of all things at the same time." Thus humanity resembles God in the sense of having free volition for unlike plants and other animals, the soul of man received from God the power of voluntary motion and in this respect resembles God (Deus. 48). This concept, that it is chiefly in the intellect and free volition that makes humans differ from other life forms, has a long history which can be traced to Anaxagoras and Aristotle.  Philo calls "men of God" those people who made God-inspired intellectual life their dominant issue. Such men "have entirely transcended the sensible sphere, and migrated to the intelligible world, and dwell there enrolled as citizens of the Commonwealth of Ideas, which are imperishable, and incorporeal ... those who are born of God are priests and prophets who have not thought fit to mix themselves up in the constitutions of this world...."(Gig. 61). Philo writes in reference to the Old Testament expression that God "breathed into" (equivalent of "inspired" or "gave life to") inanimate things that through this act God extended his spirit into humans (LA 1.37). Though his spirit is distributed among men it is not diminished (Gig. 27). The nature of the reasoning power in men is indivisible from the Divine Logos, but "though they are indivisible themselves, they divide an innumerable multitude of other things." Just as the Divine Logos divided and distributed everything in nature (that is, it gave qualities to undifferentiated, primordial matter), so the human mind by exertion of its intellect is able to divide everything and everybody into an infinite number of parts. And this is possible because it resembles the Logos of the Creator and Father of the universe: "So that, very naturally, the two things which thus resemble each other, both the mind which is in us and that which is above us, being without parts and invisible, will still be able in a powerful manner to divide and distribute [comprehend] all existing things" (Her. 234-236; Det. 90). Uninitiated minds are unable to apprehend the Existent by itself; they only perceive it through its actions. To them God appears as a Triad -- himself and his two Powers: Creative and Ruling. To the "purified soul," however, God appears as One.
 

Quote

“When, therefore, the soul is shone upon by God as if at noonday, and when it is wholly and entirely filled with that light which is appreciable only by the intellect, and by being wholly surrounded with its brilliancy is free from all shackle or darkness, it then perceives a threefold image of one subject, one image of the living God, and others of the other two, as if they were shadows irradiated by it .... but he claims that the term shadow is just a more vivid representation of the matter intended to be intimated. Since this is not the actual truth, but in order that one may when speaking keep as close to the truth as possible, the one in the middle is the Father of the universe, who in the sacred scripture is called by his proper name, I am that I am; and the beings on each side are those most ancient powers which are always close to the living God, one of which is called his Creative Power, and the other his Royal Power. And the Creative Power is God, for it is by this that he made and arranged the universe; and the Royal Power is the Lord, for it is fitting that the Creator should lord it over and govern the creature. Therefore, the middle person of the three, being attended by each of his powers as by body-guard, presents to the mind, which is endowed with the faculty of sight, a vision at one time of one being, and at another time of three; of one when the soul being completely purified, and having surmounted not only the multitude of numbers, but also the number two, which is the neighbour of the unit, hastens onward to that idea which is devoid of mixture, free from all combination, and by itself in need of nothing else whatever; and of three, when, not being as yet made perfect as to the important virtues, it is still seeking for initiation in those of less consequence, and is not able to attain to a comprehension of the living God by its own unassisted faculties without the aid of something else, but can only do so by judging of his deeds, whether as creator or as governor. This then, as they say, is the second best thing; and it no less partakes in the opinion which is dear to and devoted to God. But the first-mentioned disposition has no such share, but is itself the very God-loving and God-beloved opinion itself, or rather it is truth which is older than opinion, and more valuable than any seeming (Abr. 119-123).”

 

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

4 hours ago, SirPalomides said:

They regarded philosophy as a way of life, something to be practiced, so of course it was experiential for them. What that looked like depended on what current/ era we were looking at. Certainly by late antiquity the main current of Platonism had elaborated a theory/practice of theurgy, ritual and meditative practice for uniting with gods or channeling divine influence. @Zhongyongdaoist has discussed this quite a lot on this forum, so you can peruse his posts if you're interested. For an excellent summary of this brand of Platonism check on Sallustius' short book On the Gods and the World https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sallust_On_the_Gods_and_the_World/Sallust_on_the_Gods_and_the_World

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:

On 10/14/2017 at 9:51 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

The big question here is "Why didn't a group of high minded pious Jews of the period stone this demon obsessed carpenter to death as a false prophet, like the Law says they should?", who listened to him, and who took his words seriously and who would have protected him from the angry mob?  Cheshire Cat has his own answers, and which are probably that Jesus was a Zealot, and that he was protected by a gang of "Apostle thugs" who would be only to happy to kill anyone in the audience who disagreed with them.  My own answer is that assuming that any of this actually happened and in many ways that is a big assumption, that he had a very sympathetic audience of "God Fearers" and Hellenizing Jews who would have been only to happy to listen to some nice young itinerant preacher speaking Greek Philosophy, which the Greeks had stolen from the Jews anyway, or at least that is what they believed, in terms which had been made as Kosher sounding as they could be by a line thinkers including Aristobolus and the older and very prolific contemporary of any conceivable historical Jesus, the Apostles and Paul, Philo of Alexandria.  I have posted a little bit about this milieu in my posts on the religious background of the Renaissance Neoplatonist and author on magic Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy here:

Agrippa Book One Introduction

(The Relevant posts are mostly on the first and second page, but the whole thread is short and worth a read.)

 

The upshot of which is that a tendency to synthesis Platonic and and Jewish thought existed possibly as early as the Third Century B.C.E. in Ptolemaic Egypt, and that it continues into the Patristic period starting with Justin Martyr, the first of the Church fathers, and running through such Church Fathers as Lactantius and Marius Victorinus, the teacher of St .Augustine.

 

Finally two things, it should be remembered that Joseph and Mary were supposed to have fled to Egypt with the baby Jesus in order to avoid Herod's slaughter of the innocents and if all of this interesting stuff was going on in Alexandria, there would have been no need for Jesus to go off to India for instruction from Hindus or Buddhists would there?  For those people who find the notion of Plato and the Gospels farfetched, I did post about the possible use of Plato's Gorgias in the "Sermon on the Mount" here:

 

Plato's Gorgias in Matthew

 

If you think finding Plato in the Gospel's is simply my own odd and eccentric hobby, you should find yourself a copy of:

 

Plato and the Christians by Adam Fox, Philosophical Library, 1957

 

On the title page the author is listed as Archdeacon of Wesminster, a title of some significance in the Anglican Church.  In this book he takes almost every commonplace among Christian thought that originates somewhere in the New Testament and traces it to some interesting section of Plato's dialogs.  There on p. 131 you will find under the heading, "Love your Enemies", a correlation of Matthew 5.43-45 with Plato's Republic 335B-E.

 

Finally for the sake of brevity I have had to engage in some real oversimplification, nonetheless I hope the above is helpful.

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.

On 12/25/2023 at 2:06 PM, Nungali said:

The other person here that I know  who has experience and valid study in this field (in the past, his focus now seems on the eastern traditions )  is Donald ; aka

In my introductory post:

Hello, they tell me I can do stand-up...

I had this to say about my studies:

On 1/7/2009 at 4:11 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I have many years of study, practice, reflection, etc. on Daoism in its spiritual/philosophical/religious dimensions behind me. I combine it with a long term interest in the Western Esoteric traditions such as Magic, Qabalah, Platonism as it shades into Neo-Platonism, Astrology (Western and Chinese), Esoteric Mathematics, etc. Back in the Eighties I jokingly, but rather accurately, summarized my studies as Cornelius Agrippa meets the Golden Dawn in Medieval China. That said, how do you like me so far?

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

2 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Look forward to your next sharing @Infolad1

You and Zhong infused some much appreciated substance to the conversation.

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:

On 10/23/2014 at 9:20 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

the concept of "Formal Cause", a concept put forward by Aristotle, but strongly related to Plato's "Doctrine of Ideas".

And

On 10/23/2014 at 9:20 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I also made a conjecture at that time that information theory (in a sense an instantiation of Plato's "ideas")

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:

On 1/28/2015 at 1:13 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

As I have mentioned Agrippa's work has a general structure in which the first chapter introduces a topic and subsequent chapters develop it, thus the section on Occult Virtues:

and related to such Daoist concepts as Wuwei here:

On 11/11/2018 at 6:49 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

I found Western Classical Philosophy particularly Aristotle's Four Causes and his concept of the "unmoved mover", better translated as "unchanged changer", to be very useful in modeling wu wei.  There are passages in both the Neiye and the Dao De Jing that support this comparison, especially in regard to the notion of "the One".  I have posted on these ideas in several places, but if you are interested I can work up a post and some references for 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

3 hours ago, Infolad1 said:

Information theory is AMAZING. Here are a couple of books that I have on the subject.

 

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos

https://a.co/d/el4wLql

 

Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes 

https://a.co/d/j5IJlEH

 

Now I've just got to find time to read them all! Cheers!

Here is something else to make time for:

On 8/8/2014 at 12:02 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

If you would like a really interesting read try:

 

Physics in Mind, Werner R. Lowenstein

 

Two separate links above by the way. Here you can read about information arrows, quantum sensation and about how Maxwell's demon found work designing quantum molecules, that cleverly exploit the relationship between entropy and information, which Lowenstein calls 'Demon Molecules'. I always knew there was a place for him somewhere in quantumville.

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:

Quote

 

Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky (EPR) steering or quantum steering describes the “spooky action at a dis-

tance” that one party is able to remotely alter the states of the other if they share a certain entangled state.

Generally, it admits an operational interpretation as the task of verifying entanglement without trust in the

steering party’s devices, making it lie intermediately between Bell nonlocality and entanglement. Together

with the asymmetrical nature, quantum steering has attracted a considerable interest from theoretical and

experimental sides over the past decades. In this Perspective, we present a brief overview of the EPR

steering with emphasis on the recent progress, discuss current challenges, opportunities, and propose vari-

ous future directions. We look to the future, which directs research to a larger-scale level beyond massless

and microscopic systems to reveal steering of higher dimensionality, and to build up steered networks

composed of multiple parties

 

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:

17 hours ago, Infolad1 said:

First things first: QI IS ENERGY. ENERGY IS INFORMATION

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:

On 10/23/2014 at 9:20 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

On 10/23/2014 at 8:33 AM, Brian said:

Very nicely stated, iain.

 

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

2 minutes ago, Cobie said:

 

Not “today”, CORNELIUS AGRIPPA was on SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

The most recent one I saw was DECEMBER 15, 2023, JOHN WILLIAM SALTER, an English paleontologist.

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

On 12/16/2023 at 2:22 PM, wandelaar said:

Specifically about Newton's alchemy see:

https://www.google.nl/books/edition/The_Foundations_of_Newton_s_Alchemy/wwc4AAAAIAAJ?gbpv=1

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.

1. Linda Hall Library
2. News
3. Scientist of the Day
4. 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:

7 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

1. Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
2. A name that can be named is not an eternal name.   (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

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:

2 hours ago, NaturaNaturans said:

@ChiDragon no wonder it is hard to explain

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

8 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Are R.M. Martin and John N. Martin different people?

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

ZYD

11 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

I did find that thread interesting, very interesting!

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

21 minutes ago, Nungali said:

I get it  ,    you  are  doing 'cut ups'    ;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique

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

On 12/6/2023 at 10:37 AM, Mark Foote said:

I also like the idea of mixed monastic communities and married practitioners, and I think the teachers who came from Japan in the sixties demonstrated that being married and having kids does not necessarily preclude the serious practice of Zen.  That definitely is contrary to Gautama's teaching, but I am more interested in what Gautama had to offer with regard to concentration and a way of living than I am with enlightenment and what he felt enlightenment must necessarily entail.  (Emphasis mine, ZYD)

Based on what you say above, you might find my posts in Confucian Qi gong interesting:

On 8/17/2008 at 10:15 PM, exorcist_1699 said:

Same as Taoist and Buddhist qi gong , Confucian qi gong is another important school in the Chinese tradition . Instead of starting from emptiness (Buddhist ) or jing (Taoist ), the Confucians starts from morals. Capable of transforming people's moral drive ( e.g, courage to rescue the people in danger , the determination to stand out and criticize all those evils...etc ,) into qi , hold it and expand it , is the main characteristics of the Confucian way.

 

The upgrade of your moral level will enhance the power of your qi ; a good man is also a very powerful man .

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

1 hour ago, Mark Foote said:

In the mid-70's, I was living in San Francisco, attending practice at the Zen Center

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.

1 hour ago, Nintendao said:

might as well look like voodoo

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:

1 hour ago, Sanity Check said:

The latest evolution could involve christians exploring the occult

What if Jesus was a Magician to begin with?  As I posted here, there are strong reasons to take the idea seriously:

On 10/3/2019 at 11:12 AM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

Aside from that, given your Christian background and your efforts to free yourself from early conditioning related to it, you might find this Blog:

 

Was Jesus a Magician?

 

Both informative and inspiring.  It is the Blog of Dr. Helen Ingram and is based on and an exposition of her PhD thesis, Dragging Down Heaven: Jesus as Magician and Manipulator of Spirits in the Gospels. I read the book that inspired it, Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician in the late Seventies and found it informative and very suggestive, but not completely convincing, it became one among many possible accounts of a possible historical Jesus, but Dr. Ingram's thesis is a much more convincing discussion and based on it I would say that the notion that Jesus, if there was a historical Jesus, was very likely a "magician" is far more likely than any of the other alternatives that I have read.

I hope this is an interesting and helpful addition to this discussion.

ZYD

2 hours ago, SirPalomides said:

https://centrostudimetafisici.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/surrealism-esoteric-secrets-200-221.pdf

 

I'm about 2/3 through this fascinating book and I wonder if anyone else has read it. It is, on the one hand, extremely dense and if I didn't have a basic grasp of the history of surrealism and some of the key people, I would be totally lost. (I'd read the Andre Breton anthology What is Surrealism?, including the lengthy introduction, as well as Pierre Mabille's wonderful book on surrealism and myth, Mirror of the Marvelous). As it is, it can still be tricky reading. Overall it charts the surrealists' involvement in a number of esoteric currents, in the service their poetic occultism. I have sometimes seen this involvement characterized as a mere whimsical dabbling but this book makes it clear that it was quite profound.   (Emphasis mine, 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