Episode 20
Hosted by Sky Mathis and Ike Baker
66 chaptersFull transcriptVideo
Show notes
In this episode of Aetherica, we enter the world of the pre-Socratics—tracing the roots of Western philosophy through Democritus, Empedocles, and Pythagoras, while examining the priestly cultures, initiatory systems, and sacred sciences that shaped their thought.
We begin with Democritus: his travels through Egypt, Persia, and possibly India; his contact with priestly and philosophical traditions; and the remarkable scope of his early atomic theory. The discussion explores how atomism, void, infinity, and indivisibility were already being contemplated in antiquity—and why many pre-Socratic questions remain philosophically relevant even in light of modern physics.
From there, we turn toward the Magi—the priestly astronomical cultures of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia. We examine what the word magos originally meant, how priesthood, astronomy, ritual, and philosophy existed as one discipline, and how these traditions developed through Chaldean, Babylonian, Sumerian, and Zoroastrian currents.
The conversation also explores
We then move into Empedocles, his healing practices, purification rites, and the origin of the four classical elements—earth, water, air, and fire—which would become foundational to later occult, alchemical, and philosophical systems.
The latter half focuses deeply on Pythagoras: his initiations in Egypt, his school at Croton, the discipline of silence, memory training, music, moral exercises, and why mathematics became one of the great spiritual revelations of antiquity.
From the episode’s public YouTube description.
Chapters and transcript
66 chapters, with the full transcript beneath them. Choose a time to start the video there. Open a chapter to read what is said in it.
0:00Democrus. Uh so Democrus was a pupil of certain Majian and Calaldanss. He traveled to Egypt to learn geometry from the priests as well as Persia. And it's said that he associated with the gymnosphists of India. Gymnosphists also known as the naked philosophers or naked wise men. Um this was the name given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers of an aesthetic orientation meaning they held to a lifestyle characterized by absence from sensual pleasures often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals.
0:55Uh there were gy gymnosophists in upper Egypt who were called Ethiopian gymnosphists as well. Um so his accuracy of observations were marveled at by Hypocrates. Hypocrates Hypocrates. Um and he was yeah he was also a comp a contemporary of Hypocrates who had conversed with him directly. uh Democratus was an admirer of Pythagoras and it appears that he drew a lot of inspiration from him. So yeah, go ahead uh Ike and feel free to add anything additional about democra Democrus. And then I wanted to ask you
1:38particularly about magians or magian magianism or the magi because I think it's very direct uh to the overall theme here like who who were the magians uh what were their sort of practices and their religious lives like um and how it kind of compares or differs with the calaldanss but yeah go ahead. Yeah, I I mean Democratus was obviously pre prescratic. So, uh before Socrates, before that um dialectic, that's really what you know a big part of Socratic philosophy embodies is uh the dialectic method.
2:23um which is this kind of discursive reasoning uh a reasoned argument or discussion between two or more people and that we see that right in in Plato's dialogues that's exactly what they are that's the way he taught that wasn't um wasn't always the case right because you get people uh you have uh you know other philosophers right ma mathematics was was kind of was was part and parcel of philosophy Right? Because Sophia was wisdom and so you people like Uklid and and um Udox is
3:00writing um philosophically, mathematically but not necessarily always in a uh in in a dialectic or discursive um sort of way and and that's what we see with with Socratic philosophy along along with with these really rarified ideals. So the prescoratic philosophers were they were like natural philosophers more so um not they were there's a lot of there a lot of discussion of cosmogy which is interesting you know um uh the formation of the cosmos and then how that relates to how does this big machine work it was
3:38like a bunch of people who just it was something from the Twilight Zone a bunch of people who are just just sort of waking up in this gig realizing we're in this gigantic machine how how does this work. What is this? That was really precratic philosophy. Whereas Socratic philosophy dealt with things like virtue, ethics. Okay, we kind of we have ideas now about how this thing works, but how do we live in it? You know, what's the me what's the tilos, the meaning, the purpose of this whole
4:09thing? That seems it's much more so Socratic philosophy. But um Democratus was interesting. He he developed the idea of the atom. Um atma meaning unbreakable in in Greek. So people think that a lot of these ideas are really new. Oh man, I'm forgetting the philosopher's name, but I mean it was like I think in like the 300s BCE, there was a Greek philosopher Araththenis. — That's him. Arastinis. He calculated the circumference of the earth within like a margin of like a fraction, you know? So,
4:48it's like people think like, oh no, they thought the earth was flat. It's like you don't know what the [ __ ] you're talking about. you're dumber than they were, you know, because you believe that [ __ ] tripe, you know, like these uh Greek philosophers, they knew the earth was a globe based off of the um uh particularly like the eclipse when the earth cast a shadow on the moon or or you know um they they knew that, oh, it's round. it must be a globe, you know, um like these [ __ ] oranges or
5:21something like that, you know, and and obviously there were a lot of other uh calculations, but but Democratus, right? So, we're talking about early prescratic kind of natural philosophy. They're kind of protocientists. And Democratus was really interesting. He basically says that he talks about how the smallest unit of matter is this unbreakable monad um you know this globe. It's the perfect shape. Everything wants to be uh circular um because that that mirrors infinity. It's the perfect shape. Um but
6:02uh the thing is even though those those particles these automa they were they were physically indivisible there was space between them which we know to be true. So um he conceptualized it as like like an infinite amount of space again sassic you know pre-aging uh our discovery of like what we I guess what we would consider zero point — you know the zero point phenomenon in like quantum physics — where it's like we understand that there's space between these molecules but every time we try to measure it
6:41every device we have just keeps going into infinity. And when you think of it that way, right, if every single atom is surrounded by space, some sort of, you know, we we don't really say that it's a vacuum, but but it's it's it's space, we don't really know how to describe it. If that's the case, right, and that that is kind of infinite, then we're made more of nothing than of something, which which is, you know, which is really really crazy to think about. And and it
7:11really it's it's very pertinent. It points to the illusion of materiality really. Um what we understand now in that that kind of uh that that 0 point you know quantum physics level uh is that there's this kind of chaos here with those the subatomic particles exist there. they kind of come in and out of reality through that that space quarks and and and nutrinos and things like that and they they don't behave rationally um which uh which was again pre-aged in ancient Greece by the discovery of
7:51non-rational numbers you know um irrational fractions and things like that uh which was like an abomination to them it destroyed the precious order of their philosophy Um so uh but it it's essentially he he he he he attempts this problem because the there are these paradoxes that certain other philosophers put forth that they were like okay we they're trying to figure out whether or not and this is crazy but not crazy but it it's just wild that they they thought this deeply and this
8:27intensely back then. Um, you know, whereas now like most people are just they can barely think. People can barely think now. — You got their 10-second Tik Tok vids. — Yeah. It's I see it happening to me. My attention span is getting cut up because I'm always on [ __ ] social media, you know? It's it's really it's much harder for me now having been on social media steadily for the past year to pay attention to anything. But um but uh these philosophers there was a paradox I
8:59forget who put it forth but they were trying to figure out if movement is actually possible. — Mhm. — If movement is real — um or if it was illusory but uh you know these are kind of things that we're still wrapping our head heads around from a from a quantum level from a uh a philosophical level. We haven't really answered these to any degree of satisfaction. Um, we're we've gotten we we've gotten really good at a particular type of investigation or or I would say um data
9:34interpretation and that's data that we get from technology. You know, we have highly refined technological instruments that are giving us data and yeah, we could synthesize that. We could kind of make sense of that, but the it doesn't disprove the existence of the other stuff, right? The non the metaphysical, the the nonsensible. We just don't have the instruments to examine that as minutely as the instruments we have developed um for material science. I mean it can be said that really things like meditation,
10:14scrying, vision work, astral work, those are all technologies right because in to investigate something that is non-physical you need non-physical things you need a non-physical technology really it's a technique um but uh so that I mean that's that's really what I know about democratus um — yeah and So, so he's a pupil of the Majians. And so I What does it mean to be a pupil? Does that mean — student? — What was that? — A student. That's all. Okay. It's a
10:54synonym for student. — What can we What can we say about the Majians? Uh, it said Majans and the Calaldanss. So I I don't know. Are these are magians separate than Calans? are they what's the difference between them as far as maybe you're concerned or your knowledge is concerned? — So it it boils down to um etmology and and really time period for a really long time. Calian, Persian, Sumerian, Aadian, Mesopotamian, Babylonian, Iranian, they were nearly synonymous terms. people just threw them the [ __ ]
11:38around like they meant the same thing. They they're different cultures that existed um sort of co-terminally uh or or they existed successively in in various uh at various times. So really whether or not I'm talking about Calaldanss or Assyri Babylonians is just where what what time period am I looking at because they all kind of um lived in and around those empires were around what we would consider modernday Iran. — Um that that area you know ancient Babylon that's Iran right now. Um and
12:21and uh the Calaldanss were I would I I'm pretty sure they were the oldest uh you know there were the sort of I think it was Mesopotamian uh Calaldan um uh well there then there there was Sumer that was very old and before them were the Acadians. — So they had things like the Calaldian oracles obviously. — Yeah. But the thing is you what you what you got to remember about that is that the Calan oracles were written by um you know uh the Giuliani supposedly um and they you know Julian the the theist
13:01and and Julian the Caldian — um so we don't really know very much about you know and that was because we're talking that's the Hellenistic era. Mhm. — It's not we're not going back into ancient — time. This is I mean this is this is um mid to late antiquity we're talking about here because the we don't have the original called an oracles anymore. M — what we have is we have extracts of Platinus, Pipery, Prolis, you know, the Neoplatanist what they wrote and said
13:35and quoted and things that that related to uh theoria and and all kind of this hodgepodge at this point of neoplatonic sayings. And we call that the Calan oracles, but we have no idea what the actual C called an oracles were as a as a whole document. You know, we have fragments and extracts. It's like if I'm quoting from the mystical cabala, — but nobody, you know, they have my four or five lines of what I wrote, but the book's not available, you know. So, we don't really we don't really know. But
14:11the thing is that they were they were early early in the the system of of transmission. You know, it's the Mesopotamian astrologers were practicing this 5,000 years ago. You know, they were practicing astrology back then. It was, you know, ominic and it was mundane, you know, astrology. It it was electional. It had more to do with the affairs of of of state and sovereign um and uh and and omens and uh also but not this wasn't like people on the street you know. — Yeah. Yeah. — These were these were priests.
14:56— These were priest astronomers. Um, and that's essentially what uh mahi means, priests. — You know, that term I believe comes from old Phoenician. — Um, and I'm sure it has etmological roots in uh, you know, even further back. And the thing that's really really interesting that a lot of people don't realize and Steven Flowers has done some really interesting work on this. You have the ancient uh um I want to say uh Sumerian cultures and their gods. And this would have been
15:43uh I believe contemporaneous with like Abraham in the Bible, right? He left the city of Ur, which was a Sumerian city. Um they have their pantheons of gods and goddesses and things like this. And then comes the prophet uh you know down the line uh Zoroaster Zarathustra and he um he essentially takes what what he you know what was considered I guess as a a barbarous uh polytheistic religion and he turns it into more of a dualistic um religion that contains within it not merely this um set of cosmogonical and cosmological
16:31myths and formula for worship and tribute of various gods but a sotiology you know a a study of salvation um and uh that is very interesting because really I mean that is it's at this time in zoroastrianism that we find I think the the highest the highest uh the most refined um version of priesthood um and and and and magic really um you know there's a lot of magic that come out of the Avestas which are the old sacred texts of that land and the really really interesting thing is that the Avestas
17:19share uh a lot of etmological roots and they use common words that you don't really find in other areas um as the vedas. It even sounds like it. Avesta Va you know it's it's — the the the Indian — scriptures you know um the precursors of uh you know what what we call Hinduism really sanatana dharma the the eternal dharma um that Buddhism comes out of is a new reinterpretation of I would say that that Zoro Aster did for for for or Zaratha did for that religion um that area Buddha did for for the the the the
18:04Far East. — Yeah. Um so so it's you know mi was was traditionally a word or magos was traditionally reserved for a priest class and now you find where do we we don't really know 100% the the etmological or somebody might but the issue is that we have a really hard time communicating with the uh the the historical and academic authorities in Iran, right? We're not, it's not like you can just go over there. It's not like London. — Um, uh, so they keep a really tight,
18:42you know, um, lid on availability to those ancient sites, things from people like us and stuff. I mean, we look at the bombing of Baghdad, right? Destroyed tons of artifacts from uh, — from that era, in that area. — I think there's like the library of Asher Bonipal. I think that was in that area. A big ass library. — Yeah. Um and just — but but I I I just wanna I want to point out that because they share so many similarities um there's there's something interesting where do we find
19:18like um in that language in in in Hindi and and Sanskritta and um you know the language of the vadas we find like the prefix ma meaning great and we find uh go or most um we find that meaning two things ow or like light. So it's interesting because if you take the if you take the vdic associations of those two you know uh this compound word let's say and put them together you have a word that means great light — um and uh and we also know you know that that the cow became uh a sacred animal
20:00anyway but um it's uh these were the the men learned in the astronomical sciences in in that culture in in Phoenicia and um they're the Persians, you know, the same same area, you know. So, it's uh — so so yeah, so that that's kind of the what the word Magos means. And it's essentially what we're talking about these natural philosophers, right? Because they didn't really use astrology the way that we use astrology. They used it like a like like looking at the universal clockwork to say, "Okay, now
20:42is the time to, you know, go to war or now is the time to plant the crops or now is the time to build this city, lay the cornerstone of this building." Um, it wasn't like they weren't reading natal charts. They weren't doing horoscopes. — Yeah. And just a touch more on on the note of like the omenic observations. Uh Jamie Paul Lamb was telling me basically like uh in regards to all the omic data that was collected over these large periods of time in particular that we're
21:19talking about like with the calans and and whatnot um is kind of what led largely to the understanding of things like like the virtues and the dynamics of astrological and astronomical associations and influences and how they have their effects on consciousness and and matter in the material world and on Earth by all of these years and years of collecting all this data on the things that occurred in regards to the times that the planets were at certain positions and and all this all of these recorded data sets.
22:02When you look at all of them, you find these particular patterns. And in finding and looking at those particular patterns is patterns is where such a large portion of of what we now modern day understand about why you know why do we say things like Venus is associated with particular things like love or you know Venian aspects is because of this preemptive uh very like in-depth data that was from this omenic uh kind of observe these like amenic observations or whatever. — Yeah. I mean observation is the best
22:44that's the best word that was the the closest you could get to scientific experiment was uh back then was observation and observation is part of the scientific method still right you have to observe something um so that you can say okay either we agree or we disagree it it happened this way and then it happened again this way it write repeatable empirical evidence in order to confirm a hypothesis as a theory So, so yeah, I mean they were these were the first scientists, but it wasn't they were the first scientists and the
23:21first philosophers, them and the Egyptians. The Egyptian the the pre and who who the [ __ ] knows? I'm not going into Atlantis and and and all these hyperoreia. I don't give I don't care about any of that [ __ ] because that I mean that at that point it's like there is zero historical record. I'm not saying that it didn't exist. It's just that's not something that we can really talk about without getting into like, you know, uh what somebody's grandma in the 1700s [ __ ] chneled in a
23:50graveyard. We have no idea. There's no way to know. Drop it, you know, cuz we get out into these weird places. Um, but at the end of the day, we can we do see, you know, we're getting more information about the ancient Mesopotamians and Sumerianss and uh, Sero Babylonians, Aadians, all that stuff. There's more stuff coming in. There's been a a little bit of a surge in scholarship. I remember I remember maybe like 5 years ago, I remember seeing um, I don't remember where though. Might have been
24:24on television, but it might also have been like a YouTube video. I can't remember but there were certain academics calling — for more interest in um in in in in like this scholarly trajectory like we need more archaeologists, we need more historians, we need more uh you know qualified academic professionals to specifically focus on this area. And and we we've seen more and more of that stuff coming to light. And so we can really see that these priests, you know, they were scientists
25:03at the same time. Scientists, philosophers, and and holy men, you know, and because it was all one [ __ ] thing. When you look at the universe, when you look at creation as miracly miraculous, it's all then then you don't philosophy uh spirituality and observing nature. It's all it's all the same thing — 100%. All right. So then we got I want to make sure I pronounced this right. Is it impoticles? — Empeticles. — Empeticles. Impeticles. — So Impeticles. uh he was said to be of
25:39the homeriic school. Uh maybe you can first just elaborate a little bit on the home school and and what that all entails. Um I know like you know Homer he was a pupil of Alexandrias and Pythagoras. So what was the home school of things? Like is that just mean like studying things like the Iliad and the Odyssey and the epic poems and whatnot? To be honest with you, I I am I'm unaware as to whether or not it was a distinct philosophical school or whether it was — um so back then, right, means blind.
26:19That's what that means. — And I've always had this like since I was like 15, I've always had this kind of pet theory that omeos um it didn't it wasn't a person. It was a a group of people — because they were historians and all histories of old were part legend. Yeah. — Because you you you that's the whole thing, right? It constantly goes back to what I'm what I always say and what a lot of people right because I'm not I didn't discover this. I heard it from
26:52somebody else applied it to my life and it was like I'm seeing things that have always been there that I've never noticed before. And it's this whole idea that we have in place from the time we are born a deeply deeply deeply programmed system of uh nominalism. This um intellectual dualism where it's got to either be this or got to either be that, you know. Uh and um highly Arisilian, but uh it's it's never this or that. It's always this and that and then probably more, right? We just talking about how
27:33philosophy, religion, math, science, they were all one [ __ ] thing. That's why these people were able to do to to be at the same time philosophers, holy men, live those lives of of constant purity and devotion and ministering to various gods and at the same time studying science, studying mathematics. They were living polymaths. They were I mean this was this was apex — because they didn't bifurcate and [ __ ] compartmentalize you you they were chopping up our minds in the modern day
28:09— definitely — you know so so it's like even even back then histories had to teach lessons they had to teach morality they encoded esoteric truths they recorded a a story of of of of what happened and and the more the greater moral or spiritual implication, right? You read the Iliad and the Odyssey, it's just full of the [ __ ] gods. The gods are the only reason anything happens. — Yeah. — You know, so um I mean it's like the gods have, you know, uh they're just as prominent and prevalent
28:45as any human figures in those stories. And so I've always had this suspicion that that um was a tradition. And it was a tradition like kind of like the Druids have the bards. Well, the G the ancient Greeks had the omeos, the blind poets because they didn't they never saw what happened. They weren't there. You know that it's been passed down with these these epic poems that were sung to music. You know, that's how that's how you were able to memorize this stuff. Um homeriic stuff was was poetic. It
29:18required music uh typically. So I again I'm unaware as to a specific philosophical homeriic school but if I had to guess I would say impedacles um maybe studied uh this way of weaving legend history myth spirituality um all of those things in in into the home hole so to speak — these are my these are my little pet theories I'm not saying that uh that you should go and now okay you know start saying This is how it was. This is just my theories. But I do know that impeticles was very very important
29:56because he devised the theory of all matter being composed of four elements. — That's where we get you know earth, water, air and fire. Those are traditionally known as the empedian elements. — Yeah. And you know that what you said makes total sense. Makes a lot of sense to me. Um so yeah, he was of you know at least that school or that line of inquiry for one. And uh he was said to perform magical feats particularly in the realm of healing. He was a great healer apparently. Uh it seems you know
30:29healing and purification was very important to him as well as a lot of these guys that we're going to be talking about. Um he was a champion of freedom and adverse to rule of every kind. He was apparently very humble and declined kingship that was offered to him at one point. So, those are some kind of interesting little noteworthy things about Empedicles. Is there anything else you wanted to add about him before we move on? — I just want to say that the guy that does not want to be king is always the
31:01one who should be — 100%. — That's about it. — I'm with you on that. — All right. So, then we got Pythagoras of Samos. Uh, he was said to have started the philosophy of Italy, whatever that means. I'll ask you about that. uh — seems like a very broad stroke but yeah we'll we'll talk about it. Um so he was big on the practice of silence and it was required for his disciples to undergo 5 years of silence mainly listening to his discourses without
31:34seeing him and then only after passing an examination they were admitted to his house and allowed to see him. Then after learning to keep their peace and and to hear, they were allowed to speak and question and write about their conceptions. He was he was very big on memory work. And this sort of reminded me of things along the lines of uh St. Ignatius of Iola because it was said that a pathogian didn't rise out of bed until he had gone over the actions of the past day in consecutive order and
32:11then if they were availed more leisure they were to recollect all events of the past three days. It was believed uh nothing was more conducive to silence experience and prudence than to remember things. It was said that he had morning excitations at his house, composing his own soul to the liar, singing songs of Thales as well as homeriic verses and used dance of which he attributed to agility and bodily health. He had these verses that everyone was to repeat to himself prior to sleep. Um so the the
32:52verses they go like this at least the English translations uh quote nor suffer sleep at night to close thine eyes till thrice thy acts that day thou hast our earn h thouast thou hast our how slipped what deeds what duty left undone and before rising as soon as your thou wst and order lay the actions to be done that following day. — Yeah. So that right there that right there was lifted from Pythagoras — at least right it's attributed to him. The most import the most important thing
33:36that you could say about Pythagoras is that he never wrote anything. So all we have is from his students and what we suppose — um is attributable to him and his school. But St. like you're saying to your point St. Ignatius of Lyola who founded the Jesuits that is in his foundational text the spiritual exercises and that's actually one of the most well-known of his spiritual exercises and it's you know it's lifted from uh the Pythagorean school. — Yeah. What's it called again? There's
34:04like a particular name for it like is it the ruach or or the rickshaw or rickshaw practice something? — I I I don't know. Uh, I think a rickshaw is like a little cart that you get pulled around in. — I might have that completely wrong. — Um, but yeah, I wanted to ask you, so he is of Samos. So Samos, is that related to things like Samo Thriian Mysteries? — Yes. — Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I didn't make that connection till I was reading — Samos. Samos is an island and Thraki is,
34:41you know, thrice they call it, but it's Thraki that was the uh the mysteries of the Kabiri were celebrated there. — But um the thing Yeah. So Pythagoras is really interesting. It's always been very interesting to me that you know named after a snake, right? — Python. Well, in Greek the word fornake is pitha. — So, uh, you know, because it's almost like an anamanopia, you know, that's that sound that a snake makes. Um, but yeah, Pitha, but then also the Python
35:19priest priestess. — Oh, okay. — Temple to Apollo was oracular. — Whoa. Okay. — She was she was an oracle. The Pythonist, the the Python priestess. Um and uh were the temple to Python and Apollo in at Delelfi and um so these things are related you know uh the the that penetrating kind of knowledge. We always see that, right? Even even when when Christ admonished his followers to, you know, be ye wise as serpents, right? Um he the word he uses there is frono. Um wise that's more of a
36:00shrewdness. It's less of a wise that we think of like a a wise old man who's going to tell you about spirituality. It's more like the guy that's like, you know, uh um go to, you know, will tell you how how to stop being uh more more practically foolish. You know, the guy kind of guy that would tell you, okay, no, that's, you know, pennywise and dollar foolish. It's it's more of a practical um kind of uh application. Shrewd, be ye as shrewd as serpents. And then all you have in the Bible, right? I
36:33mean, the tempter is is the serpent, but it's it's tempting what he's not tempting them to like, oh, this fruit is good, but it's going to go straight to your thighs. No, that's not the the temptation is like you will know, you know, you will come into the knowledge of good and of evil, you know, and and so we constantly see the snake, right? And the oracle, right? She knows the future Pythagoras who would be, you know, it was foretold. I think I think it was in uh Devita Pythagora, you know,
37:08by Yamicus where he told it could have Pfury wrote one about him too. I'm I'm pretty sure that might have been Platinus, but but anyway, Yamicus at least we attribute it we attribute the main biography that we get uh from Pythagoras to Yamus who wrote about him and I'm I'm pretty sure in there it recounts this tale that his you know was told to his mother that this would be one one of the wisest men to walk the earth. She calls him uh she names him um after the python the snake uh Pithagodoras but uh
37:40it's this is Pythagoras is one of we don't know anything about really um you talked about but that's and I said this to I said this to um to Michael Osborne recently. I spoke to him last week for the podcast and he I you know we're talking about Pasquali and we're talk I was talking about how I I fall in love with these people that it's like imposs impossible to know anything about — because the mystery just draws you in you know and and um — and that's that is very much so you know
38:15Pythagoras's life was a mystery. Um we kind of know maybe around what time he was born. We kind of maybe know around what time he dies. We don't know where he where his body lays. Um we he never wrote anything. So we never have we don't have a single thing like we can point to these you know the Platonic dialogues at least most of them and say okay Plato wrote this. We don't we can't do that with Pythagoras. — Yeah. — Um and so a lot of it comes from his students. Um
38:50and uh the interesting thing is that he Yamicus also says um might have been Pfrey. I'm see I'm going back and forth on this because Pfrey also wrote a biography of Plutinus. So I get confused um whether both of them wrote a uh biographies of Plutinus or whether both of them wrote biographies of Pythagoras. It's [ __ ] confused. Too many Greeks. But um — those Greeks, man, you know, — we just we multiply. But um we all look exactly the same. No, but uh we it's we we have I'm pretty sure it's Pfury.
39:32Pfury. Yes, absolutely. It's Pfrey. So Pfrey also wrote uh a biography of Pythagoras but he wrote and he said he spent 22 years in the temples of Egypt astronomizing geometrizing and being initiated in no superficial or casual way into the mysteries of the gods there. So it's attested right that happens to to Plato right we we have it attested that Plato studied under the Horite priest called named Sufis for for I think seven years and we even find in in I think it's I think it's the Fedrris
40:11um that we have either Fedrris or Parmenities but he Plato talks about the Egyptian god thought you know writing see this great scribe god who invented did numbers, letters, and words, you know. So, you have Plato talking about the knowledge of that god um and what he did and why it's important. And so, you have all these guys getting initiated in Egypt, but after Pythagoras comes back, right? And the the the quintessential thing that defines all these guys is this initiatic experience. They are changed.
40:48They don't go there. It's not like going away to college because they're coming back talking about the, you know, they're not like they're not discussing the Dow, you know? I mean, like like the NASDAQ, you know, like they're not talking about like like mundane horseshit. They go there and they come back talking about the [ __ ] wheelwork of the universe. So, it's way more than just this vocational uh training. It these men are being taught there. it. What is being installed into their brain
41:19is like a gigantic kind of like lever that just like a like a something that just wedges itself into your brain and opens and expands your mind. And you know, uh drugs can do that for like a night, but they're being trained. What's happening really that we find is that they are they become the first meth method methodological um thinkers — they have a method they have a logic they have Solon Thales all of these guys you know the lawgiver the father theales the father of logic it's tested they all
42:01went to Egypt and learned this stuff and and they come back with these uh methods And really what it is is it's it's there, like I said before, we have this sort of postmodern interface. It's like software installed into our hardware. So it's like, yeah, we're running we all have the same hardware, but we're running this [ __ ] software that's that's it's it's making us perceive things in a very very particular way. And so ours is restrictive, 100% restrictive. Theirs
42:36was expansive. They're being installed with this this perceptive interface that allows them to to to see penetratingly into the tilos into the the the occult, right? The hidden the things hidden from the eye. Oculus occult. Occultus hidden from the eye specifically — that uh you cannot see. You know, why does it rain when it does this? Why does heat act this way? Why what's what's going on? You know, um and so they they discovered these things. They became very very good at at creating these
43:16these methods for um investigating nature that became highly highly logical um particularly by the time of of Pfury and and um and Aristotle, the great empiricist. But um uh but that they also as they tended down and looked inward, they also looked upward. And that's we find the best example of that in the historical record for my money in Plato because he's not just talking about the physical. He's constantly referring back to the metaphysical, the higher and and he did really exist in a Pythagor ultimately
43:53Pythagorean tradition um of doing that. Pythagoras changed philosophy forever. Forever. Um it was like we were going this way and here we are now because of Pythagoras. And um again blending mathematics with uh the spiritual right because mathematics it's very important to note mathematics is miraculous and we didn't invent it. We discovered or began to observe patterns. We created the symbols we use to communicate about this pattern that actually exists everywhere. But the thing is philosophically in ancient
44:35Greece the you know there was this big argument over what is real? What is real and what how do we define real and what is illusory? Um, and the real it was boiled down to particularly in in in a platonic sense is whatever doesn't change is real. Everything else because it changes, it falls apart, it dies, it decays. It can't be real. You know, be real being synonymous with eternal, you know, what is this? We know that all this [ __ ] is this can't be it's too weird. It's it's
45:12it has this underlying pattern. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. What is it? Um, it's got to be fake to some degree. It has to be illusory. Every major spiritual tradition that has ever existed has said that you know whether it's um the the SMA paradox of Plato or whether it's the you know the the the veil of uh of Maya or or of um you know Mara the the enemy of Buddha um who was materiality. uh but they basically come to this idea that um what is real is what is eternal. What
45:52doesn't change and mathematics doesn't change. That pattern does not change. If I go to China, if I [ __ ] it, if I go to Texas, it's going to be a different time there than it is here. If I go really far north to Alaska or Iceland, it's going to be, you know, more hours of uh of darkness. Like 19 20 hours of darkness there. If I go to the moon, I'm going to weigh less. I'm I won't be able to move fa as fast, you know. But no matter where the [ __ ] I go, 2 plus two will always equal four. That's called a
46:37mathematical universal certainty. So what we can say about those principles is they are in some way reflective of the eternal and they are the only reality that we can physically comprehend true reality. And this is what Pythagoras is known for. And then Plato develops it in his in his ideals, the realm of forms which is basically synonymous equated to the the Platonic uh the Platonic forms, right? The plat the five platonic solids, the only you know um regular uh geometrical solids that can be
47:12created. And uh you know now we're we're into geometry and geometry is how mathematics takes on a third dimension, right? That's math creating the physical universe is geometry. — Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if his if Pythagoras's mother knew that he was on a trajectory to undergo this sort of initiatic lifestyle in Egypt given that selected name for him, you know, named after like a wise snake. It just seems very um fit for his character. I I I don't I I I personally I'm not convinced that he
47:52was born with that name. — We don't know anything. — I would lean towards that with you as well. — Yeah. I I feel like that would be a name that was that he took on. You find that a lot about with with particularly with initiates. People who are initiated take on new names, — different names. Plato, that's not his [ __ ] name. — Yeah. — You know, but that wasn't his name. Um, [ __ ] I forget his name. Um, well, in any event, Plato means Platonos
48:25means wide, — you know. That's that's what that word means. He was he his his name was wide, you know, and we have that recorded for all time, but that wasn't his that was not his birth name. — Yeah. Wow. Do you have any insight um into how you would say in Greek, "Nor suffer sleep at night to close thine eyes till thrice thy acts that day thou hast earn. How slipped, what deeds, what duty left undone?" — No, no way. No way. — All right. Yeah, it's a different It's a
49:03more ancient Greek that it would have been spoken in, right? I I would just say pipno, you know, go to sleep. Go to sleep. — Cool. Um and then so did we talk? Yeah. What what would what would be considered the philosophy of Italy? He I guess he started the philosophy of Italy. — The thing is that you got to understand is that Italy was not Italy until I think the 18 or 1900s. the same thing with with a similar kind of thing with Germany. There's it's there's all these like little kingdoms
49:38and things not unified. Wasn't a country like that. And so Italy in the the um in I want to say I I can't pinpoint it exactly but I know in in antiquity for several hundred years Italy was known as um now I'm talking about you know in the days of the Greek philosophers. I'm not talking about uh you know the middle ages or or or even even at the time of Rome before Rome um it was called Magna Greater Greece — okay — because that's just where right Greece is mostly islands
50:23you know so it's like the there there's Sicily right there there's Malta you know there's there's all sorts of of stuff they I believe it's the Adriatic Sea that they share not just the Mediterranean. The the ocean between the the western coast of Greece and the eastern coast of Italy is uh is the Adriatic Sea. So um there was a lot of uh movement and this all the people have this mistake. They think that Greece was like we are Greeks and it's our country. Greek was was two
50:55things. Greek was a language and Greek was a certain style of uh um I want to say municipal government or or or infrastructure, right? The polish the citystate. So that's that was what Greek was. It's not it wasn't like ethnicity like this. You know what I'm there weren't you know thousands of years of just these people being in this area. We're Greeks. this is our here are our borders. It was all sorts of things. Yeah. The Pelponyian wars, Athens and Sparta hated each other. They could only
51:33unite to to fight the Persians, you know. So, it's it's it's not like pe the way people don't have any historical kind of context. — So, Greek was a language parts of Ephesus there was that's t modern day Turkey that was Greek. You go right people talk about Alexander the Great in uh you know Macedonia that was that was Greek m it's it it's not Greek anymore you know what I'm saying it's the culture was Greek — so so it's it wasn't really like that so
52:07and they were a seafaring people they moved around constantly but on water right because it's very hard to travel through to places from the the you know um the pelponius and you you have to there are it's very arid, it's very rocky and it's extremely mountainous. — So, it's not easy to travel. It's easier to travel by boat, which is what they did. Um and so yeah they they traded with with the the the um the Italics and the the Latins you know these these people early people the Atruscans these
52:44were the early precursors of the Italian peoples you know uh the Atruscans were in the area of of you know where Rome is now they called it um Aturia and uh they learned a lot uh they their language developed almost um they had a lot of uh contact with Greek traders coming up and down the rivers there, right? the river uh Tyber and um Te and and so they their language was developed with in in in uh in intercourse with trade uh with the the the the Latin people and the the italic people and and the
53:29Greeks. There's a lot of Greek in in Latin, you know, the Latin of Rome, a lot of Greek, a lot of similar words, shared words, lone words. Um, so when with all that in mind, when Pythagoras comes back from Egypt, he starts his school in uh a seaside town in what we call modernday Italy, which was then Magna, greater Greece, a little town on the souththeastern shore of Italy called Crotona. And so he basically starts philosophy there in Crotonia. He starts his school start teaching people all this stuff
54:11that you said he had the you know sort of auditor these people who took a vow of silence had to just listen to him for years that all that stuff was going on in Italy that was going on in his school in Cton. He didn't do that in Greece. M — um so what happens is then right the myth is or the legend is that they they took him for a wizard and burned him to death. Uh and you know they burned him like inside his home inside he had a compound where everybody lived. Um and they set that on fire one night and he
54:43died. But the thing is you you look at um uh like I had a conversation with David Pantano about you know when Italy became Hesperia you know the star of the west um and you had people also like uh in the italic hermetic tradition like Giuliano — Kramers — Kramers he he had people that attested to to him as and I don't know if he ever said it himself but you had people who were saying who were inferring that this man uh is during that time right the late 19th century uh he was one of the last or or for
55:32their time period uh the most contemporaneous expression of what they called the Pythagorean philosophy which had existed underground ground in initiatic schools in Italy since the time of Pythagoras. — Now, do we do we have paperwork? Of course not. That's not how these things work. But um I would even say that you look at um you know the Greek traditions, the neoplatonic traditions, the Platonic traditions, the hermetic traditions which was Greco Egyptian that came out of uh Florence after you know Kosimo
56:10Demedichi and his men find these these uh texts and then Marcio Fagino translates them and then he starts with Gist this plethon uh the new platonic academy and he has this little meeting. He has this villa that Kasimo buys for him. This little this little uh sort of you know vacation home uh in in a in a outside of a place called Karei and he has all these um he does these rituals and he does the the Orphic hymns. His nickname among his group of associates was Orpheus because he could play music
56:45very well. they could play the loot and and these and so he would set all these things to the hymns to to music and he would prescribe them to people like medicine like a doctor would prescribe medicine he would prescribe orphic hymns and he did all this Greek translation work in this platonic neopyagorean philosophy and then you have years later the orum solus which is the ogdoatic tradition and they claim disscent from the magicians quote unquote and scholars of the CargI circle.
Listening paths
2 guided paths stop here on the way through.
Foundational path
Station 2 of 6
Follow the books to Florence
The close of this conversation on the Magi and the Pre-Socratics follows the Platonic, Neoplatonic and Greco-Egyptian Hermetic traditions as they resurface in Florence: Cosimo de' Medici's men recover the texts, Marsilio Ficino translates them, and at the villa of Careggi Ficino sets the Orphic hymns to music and prescribes them as a physician prescribes medicine.
Intermediate path
Station 1 of 6
Start with the priest-astronomers
The astrology of Mesopotamia, practised thousands of years ago, was omen-based, mundane and electional: a matter for priests concerned with the affairs of the state and the sovereign, not for people in the street. The conversation goes on to the Magi as a priestly class and, later, to astrology as observation rather than horoscope.
Continue the current
Chosen by the particular topics and guests they share with this episode. All four share Hermeticism, Astrology and Symbolism.
No. 1755 min
65 chapters · Transcript
No. 36
with Mark Stavish
19 chapters · Transcript
