Group Lives

[Charlotte]

Do various persons make contact with one the other by fate or coincidence to form a team, league, or band such as the Beatles, contemporaneus with other bands such as the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, led Zeppelin, the Who, Rolling Stones, and other less famous bands, born in the same country, not to forget The Grateful Dead here in America. Band such as endure because they touch our Soul, emotions, daily life more so than other musicians and artists?

Faced with mysteries dark and vast, I believe that there comes a critical point during the perilous journey of Humanity to find what we are looking for when certain persons are drawn together by a sort of powerful vibration permiating the atmosphere resulting in creative activity of a different kind, as for instance from classical music to rock and roll, and why this remarkable difference in tone? Is it simply action and reaction? But there are bands who incorporated classical music, poetic and spiritual language complimented by beautiful scenery in videos.

[Charlotte]

While the Egyptians were finishing their work, there were about the 6th and 5th century, notably Lao-tzu, Cofucious, Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha; Pythagoras, Solon, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander, the Egytian Civilization ending with Cleopatra. Knowledge and Wisdom was recorded in the Library of Alexandria.

We say B.C. and A.D., marking the Christ Event, A.D. also called C.E., the Common Era - is this meant to define all before year 0 was uncommon?
Probably centuries of assimilation of the stupendous knowledge of the Egyptians and above mentioned Persons was necessary to even see the top of the iceberg, because after all this time we're still in the dark of much of the when, why, and how of the Egyptians.

[Charlotte]

Common and uncommon. Among quiet a few definitions, I'll give two: ordinary and frequent, to contrast the word with the two given for uncommon: rare and infrequent, this regarding our B.C. and C.E.

On first glance it would seem there is more ordinary and frequent, because we're on information and whatnot overload, but on second glance, there might be more of the rare, and I use here the word marvelous instead of infrequent, from which we are relentlessly distracted.

So I was looking for the next group of men and women gathering for the purpose of keeping knowledge alive via sublime manu-scripts, painting, carving, music, architecture, myths, poetry, creating stone circles, etc., and found myself back in the rare times of transition from Egypt to Greece, to the Romans, in particular at the Lighthouse that was Alexandria. A woodblock of 1493 of the Nurenberg Chronicle depicts the city of Alexandria as a regular medieval town with a Church and Castle upon a hill. "Any resemblance to the original city is purely accidental", Mr. Hall jests.

www.bibalex.org/English/artsmuseums/exhibitions/impr/images/b-Nuremberg.jpg

I actually began with the great Neoplatonist Plotinus, Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Company, as a team, but the vista widened to the vanishing point proving that the uncommon and marvelous outstrips the common and ordinary by years of light.

Off to mingle with the kind folks who grow, harvest, and bring good food to us.

P.S. News reports indicate a group of kindred spirits are drawn together in D.C., shaping our future.

[Charlotte]

Sunday travel to the East, "toward the Home of Light", of Hermann Hesse.

"For as the lightening cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matthew 24:27

Love the Company of Philosophers

The Therapeutae of Alexandria could be counted as a Group Life. They were "a Jewish sect which florished in Alexandria and other parts of the Diaspora of Hellenistic Judaism in the final years of the Second Temple period. The primary source concerning the Therapeutae is the account De vita contemplativa ("The contemplative Life"), purportedly by the Jewish Philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE - 50 CE). The authorship has been called into question because of the different stance on Greek philosophy of this work from that of other works that were written by Philo and because elsewhere Philo makes no mention of the Therapeutae although this article will refer to the author as Philo."

The Wikipedia entry suggests that whoever wrote of the "Healers" "appears to have been personally acquainted with them", most likely one of them, I would think.

"Philo records that they were "philosophers", - and were "the best" of a kind given to "perfect goodness" that "exists in many places in the inhabited world". Philo was unsure of the origin of the name and derives the name Therpeutae/Therapeutides from Greek - in the sense of "cure" or "worship."

I hear Church Bells ringing.

[Charlotte]

The active and contemplative Life

The origin of the Therapeutae is unknown, according to Philo the name meant "either physicians of souls or servants of God", or in the Greek sense, "cure" or "worship". In the contemplative and active life, physician of souls, servant of God, worship and cure, would work hand in hand, and sometimes "the Greek feminine plural Therapeutrides is "encontered for their female members. -- The opening phrases of his essay established that it followed one that has been lost, on the active life. Philo was employing the familiar polarity in Hellenic philosophy between the active and the contemplative life, exemplifying the active life of the Essenes, another severely ascetic sect, and the contemplative life by the desert dwelling Therapeutae.

"According to Philo, the Therapeutae were widely distrubited in the Ancient world, among the Greeks and beyond the non-Greek world of the "Barbarians", with one of their major gathering points in Alexandria, in the area of the Lake Mareotis:

Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for it was fitting that both Greece and the country of the barbarians should partake of whatever is perfectly good; and there is the greatest number of such men in Egypt, in every one of the districts, or nomes, as they are called, and especially around Alexandria; and from all quarters those who are the best of these therapeutae proceed on their pilgrimage to some most suitable place as if it were their country, which is beyond the Maereotic lake."

This statement about the greatest number of men partaking of whatever is perfectly good lived in the Egyptian nomes, and especially around Alexandria, affirms that every district in Egypt had its own centre of worship presided over by a "priest".

Given in the Wikipedia entry, the women taking Moses from the Nile is naked, which scholars ascribe to mean 'the naked truth', reminding of Mr. Kuhn's assertion that much of Christianity originated in Egypt. The fresco shows all women, does this mean that women re-deemed the Egyptian Era?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutae#/media/File:Dura_Europos_fresco_Moses_from_river.jpg

[Charlotte]

The inner and hidden Nature

"For they read the holy scriptures and draw out in thought and allegory their ancestral philosophy, since they regard the literal meanings as symbols of an inner and hidden nature revealing itself in covert ideas.

"In addition to the Pentateuch, the Prophets and Psalms they possessed arcane writings of their own tradition, including formulae for numerological and allegorical interpretations.

These men abondoned their property without being influenced by any predominent attraction, and they flee without even turning their heads back again.

"They "professed an art of healing superior to that practiced in the cities", Philo notes, and the reader must be reminded of the reputation as a healer Saint Anthony possessed among his 4th century contemporaries, who flocked out from Alexandria to reach him."

The Library of Alexandria, part of a Museum, was established in the 3rd century B. C. by Ptolomy I Soter. "A hall contained shelves for the collection of papyrus scrolls known as bibliothekai. According to popular descrition, an inscription above the shelves read: The place of the cure of the soul."

There is also mention of the healing Temples of Asclepius, student of Hermes, so to say.

Among other things, Mr. Hall writes on the Therapeutae in his familiar easy way:

"The Therapeutae certainly were inspired, at least to some extent, by the examples of the hermit brotherhoods of the Egyptians, even though their doctrines show traces of Judaistic, Hellenic, and Buddhistic influence.

"Philo is of the opinion that the name Therapeutae signifies those who heal the diseases of the soul. Ignorance is the great sickness from which all mortals suffer to some degree, and wisdom is the sovereign remedy. To cultivate true learning is to restore the health of both mind and body."

[Charlotte]

Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus, Apollonius of Tyana

Mr. Hall writes:

"Proclus, though an Athenian, was educated in Alexandria and is remembered today as the author of On the Theology of Plato. In this work Proclus reveals Platonic mysticism, which clearly sets forth that the essential purpose of philosophy is to create a firm foundation under faith."

It certainly did this for me but never did see it until just now.

"The School of Athens was a center of Neoplatonism until the edict of Justinian in 529 closed forever the pagan schools of higher learning.

"Among the contemplative sects that developed in Alexandria, Neopythagoreanism should also be mentioned. The principal exponent was Apollonius of Tyana. Having assumed the basic principles taught by Pythagoras, which included refrainment from any type of speech for five years, Apollonius came to believe himself to be a reincarnation of Pythagoras, who died about 497 B.C. Iamblichus, a pupil of Porphyry, considered himself to be a Pythagorean sage. Due to the legendry which came to be perpetuated and which included a number of miraculous circumstances, Neopythagoreanism developed magical coloring and both Iamblichus and Porphyry were credited with magical powers. At the age of sixteen Apollonius took the Pythagorean vows. It is reported that Apollonius disappeared in a flash of light in the presence of the Emperor Domitian."

Iamblichus, a Syrian Neoplatonist philosopher studied under Porphyry from whom we have much of the biographical information about Plotinus, Porphyry being a pupil of Plotinus.

Wikipedia

"Iamblichus, -- a man of great culture and learning, -- was the son of a rich and illustrious family, and he is said to have been the descendant of several priest-kings of the Royal family of Emesa. -- Iamblichus was the chief representative of Syrian Neoplatonism, though his influence spread over much of the ancient world. The events of his life and his religious beliefs are not entirely known, but the main tenets of his beliefs can be worked out from his exant writings."

Iamblichus' cosmology

"At the head of his system, Iamblichus placed the trancendent incommunicable "One", the monad, whose first principle is intellect, nous. Immediately after the absolute One, Iamblichus introduced a second superexistent "One" to stand between it and 'the many' as the producer of intellect, or soul, psyche."

For "Iamblichus, Pythagoras was the supreme authority", he also "reaffirmed the soul's embodiment in matter blieving matter to be as divine as the rest of the cosmos".

Looks like we are kindred spirits of Iamblichus

[Charlotte]

A five hundred year Group Live

Mr. Hall:

"There was certainly an assembly of transcendentalists in Alexandria. Strange cults dominated the atmosphere for over five hundred years to fade away with the rise of the early church. Nearly all of the mystical organizations functioning today have been inspired by the teachings of the Gnostics, Neoplatonists, alchemists, and cabalists, who labored together more or less compatibly for the preservation and extension of metaphysical traditions which had been descended from the remote past.

"The Neoplatonists in particular rejected the academic scholarship of the Greek sages and depended entirely upon the release of the mind and its dependency on formal schooling. The mystics experienced a strange and wonderful peace which liberated them from opinionism, which was little better than a falling sickness of the mind, as Heraclitus put it. There was less and less dependence of science, philosophy, and the complicated sacerdotalism of the state religious institutions. There was dynamic awareness of a silence, and this stillness was God. Deity did not answer all the questions or the questing mind nor explain the wonders of the universe. The gentle communion with the innermost caused all questions to go to sleep in eternal acceptance of the infinite plan. The limitless potential locked within every creature provided that heavely food and those who ate thereof never hungered again.

"Referring to the Neoplatonic restauration of learning, Plotinus wrote in his Enneads, "This doctrine is not new; it was professed from the most ancient times, though without beeing developed explicitly; we wish only to be interpreters of the ancient sages, and to show by the evidence of Plato himself that they had the same opinions as ourselves."

[Charlotte]

Alexandria, The Glorious City

Mr. Hall:

"In 1895 G.R.S. Mead, an exellent scholar, prepared a special preface on Plotinus to be published by the Bohn Library for a new addition of Thomas Yaylor's Select Works of Plotinus. In the preface Mead quotes Etienne Vacherot: "Alexandria, at the time when Ammonius Saccas began to teach, had become the sanctuary of universal wisdom. The asylum of the old tradition of the East, it was at the same time the birthplace of new doctrines. It was at Alexandria that the school of Philo represented Hellenizing Judaism; it was at Alexandria that the Gnosis synthesized all the traditions of Syria, of Chaldea, of Persia, blended with Judaism, with Christianity, and even with Greek philosophy. The School of the Alexandrian fathers raised Christian thought to a height which it was not to surpass, and which was to strike fear into the heart of the orthodoxy of the Councils. A strong life flowed in the veins of all these schools and vitalized all their discussions. Philo, Basilides, Valentinus, Saint Clement and Origen, opened up for the mind new vistas of thought, and unveiled for it mysteries which the genius of a Plato or an Aristotle had never fathomed."

I do give Plato more credit than that because, to put it in simple words, he knew enough of it, "and if you know enough of it you know all of it", said my Philosophy Teacher. In that Sanctuary of Wisdom, the Ibis was crested.

Plotinus

Wikipedia

"Plotinus was a major Greek-speaking philosopher of the ancient world. In his philosophy there are three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition. Historians of the 19th century invented the term Neoplatonism and applied at to him and his philosophy which was influential in Late Antiquity. Much of the biographical information about Plotinus comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads. His metaphysical writings have inspired centuries of Pagan, Christian, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics."

[Charlotte]

A few notes on Plotinus, 204/5 - 270 AD

"Plotinus took up the study of philosophy at the age of twenty-seven, around 232, and traveled to Alexandria to study. There he was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of Ammonius Saccas."

He did and stated it was the teacher he was looking for.

"At the age of fourty, during the reign of Philip the Arab, he came to Rome, where he stayed for most of the remainder of his life."

The great Neoplatonist "had an inherent distrust of materiality (an attitude common to Platonism), holding to the view that phenomena were a poor image or mimicry (mimesis) of something "higher and intelligible" which was the "truer part of genuine Being".

"Plotinus wrote the esseys that became the Enneads over a period of several years from ca. 253 until a few month before his death seventeen years later. Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely an enormous collection of notes and esseys which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book. Plotinus was unable to revise his own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his master's handwriting was atrocious, he did not properly seoerate his words, and he cared little for niceties of spelling. Plotinus intensely disliked the editorial process, and turned the task to Porphyry, who not only polished them but put them into the arrangement we now have."

Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus could be considered an erudite and wise group-live of four by themselves. Plotinus studied under Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry under Plotinus, and Iamblichus under Porphyry, all said to have magical powers.

Mr. Hall writes that Plotinus "was resolved to conquer the three hinderances to divine philosophy—materialism, skepticism, and dualism", that Porphyry relates, that "in his sixty-eighth year he (Plotinus) was unitied by an ineffable energy with the Divine. The physician Eustochius recorded the last words of Plotinus, "I have expected you, and now I endeavour that my divine part may return to that divine nature which flourishes throughout the universe."

Wikipedia states: "According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus' final words were: "Strive to give back the Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the All."

Some time earlier, Plutarch, 46 AD - 120 AD, serving as a Priest at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi by interpreting the predictions of the Oracle, spoke in the same spirit:

"Nations have established and do employ symbols, some obscure, some more intelligible, in order to lead the understanding into things divine. In the same way you must hear the stories about the gods and receive them from such as interpret myths, in reverent and philosophical spirit."

This Plutarch left for Zahi et al:

"When you hear of the fables of the Egyptians concerning their gods—their wanderings, cutting to pieces and other mishaps, you should not suppose that any of them happened or was done in the manner related."

i1.wp.com/www.trinfinity8.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/110418-zahi-hawass-1130a.jpg?resize=300%2C255