Piercing Truths: , Western Civilization, and Hope Steven Armstrong, FRC, MA, MDiv Western Civilization is in crisis. World the twenty-first century and enter a new Civilization is in crisis. Golden Age. This is consistent with G.K. Chesterton wrote about this many world traditions about the notion 3 feeling of crisis in 1906: of cycles, including the Vedic Yugas, the Greco-Roman Ages of the World,4 and O God of earth and altar, Joachim of Fiore’s Age of the Spirit, so Bow down and hear our cry, central to Simon Studion’s Naometria, Our earthly rulers falter, which had tremendous influence on the Our people drift and die; Tübingen Circle and the emergence of The walls of gold entomb us, Rosicrucianism in the 1600s.5 The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, We must ask ourselves: How is But take away our pride.1 this breaking through to a new Golden Age – this piercing through what seem William Butler Yeats also expressed like impossible environmental, cultural, similar feelings in 1919: economic, and policy issues – going to Turning and turning in the take place? widening gyre It seems impossible. The falcon cannot hear the And for a good reason: it is… falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot …unless you know what scholar, hold; initiatic storyteller, and spiritual teacher Mere anarchy is loosed upon the Peter Kingsley knows: world, Civilizations do not just happen; they The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, are created by those whose place it is to and everywhere grow them, and when a civilization comes The ceremony of innocence is to an impasse, to pierce through to a new drowned; path. The best lack all conviction, while Civilization has been in crisis before, the worst 2 and our crises are often thought of as Are full of passionate intensity. being cyclical. There is a way to pierce These descriptions from the early through them though, as an examination twentieth century are even more accurately of the origins of Western Civilization can borne out in the barrage of negative news reveal. The very thing that helped give we receive daily from electronic and print rise to today’s civilizations can help see us media in the twenty-first century. through their crises. Hope? A Path of Discovery In 2015 the Rosicrucian Order, Lifelong mystic6 Peter Kingsley is AMORC launched a powerful new site, the author of many books, articles, and http://www.hope2050.org/, visualizing lectures.7 In particular three of his works that our world in crisis would experience are an initiatic journey into the roots of “the passage” in the third decade of our Western Civilization in Magna Graecia Page 1 (what is today most of coastal southern Italo-Greek Catholic Church – a Church Italy) and beyond. of Byzantine Tradition – has Eparchies 15 Through his books In The Dark Places (Dioceses) in southern Italy and . of Wisdom, Reality, and A Story Waiting In Kingsley’s books, the story begins to Pierce You,8 Kingsley leads readers on in in southern Italy, and with the a path of discovery to the origins of Pre-Socratic philosopher (late our civilization in southern Italy, the sixth – early fifth centuries BCE), a priest Mediterranean, and Central Asia. The of , and healer.16 Modern historians tale continue in the Fall of 2018, in consider him the founder of , Kingsley’s upcoming Catafalque: Carl Jung ontology, and logic.17 9 and the End of Humanity, connecting our The story then proceeds to Akragas civilization’s origins with the ideas and in Sicily and encounters writings of Carl Jung and his associate, the (around 490 – 430 BCE), whom modern well-known scholar of Sufism and Islamic philosophy considers an early scientific , . thinker. One of the connections between our Behind both men stands Pythagoras origins and Jung is Jung’s conception of of Samos (about 570 – 495 BCE), creativity: “True creation is to give birth who founded his school and mystical to the primordially ancient in a world community in Croton in the southern 10 that is new.” This sentiment is shared Italian region of Calabria. Today he is by many, including the Pythagoreans (as considered the founder of Western math will be explained below), Professor J.R.R. and geometry and all school children learn 11 Tolkien, and the Rosicrucian Order, his “Pythagorean Theorem,” concerning a AMORC, which recently launched a video, right triangle: the square of the hypotenuse 12 “Ancient Wisdom for a New World.” (the side opposite the right angle) is equal Reading Kingsley’s works is far from to the sum of the squares of the other two simply an intellectual experience, although sides.18 his scholarship is impeccable, and for those Parmenides, Empedocles, and other interested, the endnotes provide ample Pre-Socratic Philosophers such as Zeno and erudite substantiation of the truths he of Velia were closely associated by ancient reveals. He is thoroughly engaged with the writers with the Pythagoreans, and even sacred tradition at the origins of the West. said to be Pythagoreans themselves. This brief introduction is no substitute Modern historians of philosophy for reading Kingsley’s books for oneself. often disregard this association because The Alchemical maxim applies here: Lege, the approaches of these Pre-Socratics were lege, relege, ora, labora et invenies (read, read, so original and creative that the historians 13 reread, pray, work, and thou shalt find). find this incompatible with belonging Magna Graecia to a mystical group like the followers of 19 Today we think of Italy as Italian; Pythagoras. however beginning in the eighth century Kingsley adroitly leads readers to BCE, Greek colonies were firmly discover that Parmenides and Empedocles established in the Mediterranean from were indeed Pythagorean in their approach, southern Italy to Spain and even south something standard scholarship hesitates Rosicrucian to Libya and north to the Black Sea.14 to affirm completely, since they do not Digest No. 2 The Romans called southern Italy Magna seem to foreground Pythagorean doctrine 2018 Graecia (Great Greece). Even today, the as we know it. Page 2 Pythagoras Emerging from the Underworld by Salvator Rosa (1662).

He explains why in The Dark Places of Shamanism at the Foundations Wisdom: In fact, Parmenides and Empedocles Originally, Pythagoreans weren’t received all of what they taught through so concerned with fixed ideas or shamanic journeying to the Underworld, doctrines as they were with something where the Goddess taught quite different: something that didn’t them. is about accessing just tolerate creativity and originality the source of truth and wisdom, and but encouraged them, nurtured them, that source is divine. In a careful reading guided people to their source. This of their surviving poetry, it becomes is why the Pythagorean tradition patently clear that the origins of Western managed to stay so elusive – why it Civilization are mystical and spiritual. was so open-ended, blending with This naturally has parallels with other traditions, defying our modern Egyptian Shamanism and some of the ideas of orthodoxy or self-definition. most famous ancient Egyptian texts. As The evidence is still there to author Jeremy Nadler has argued, the show how highly valued individuality true purpose of the Pyramid Texts and The and creative freedom once were in Book of Coming Forth by Day (The Book of Pythagorean circles. That can sound the Dead) involved journeying to the Am such a paradox to us; we’re so used to Dwat.22 thinking of religious groups or sects The most fundamental shamanic as made up of brainwashed, mindless project is “To die before you die.” It is, men and women. But as a of through meditative practices, to journey fact this is one of the least paradoxical to the Underworld, the realm of death, 20 things about Pythagoreanism. to gain divine wisdom.23 It is humanity’s The problem, Kingsley explains, is not oldest spiritual practice. It is present with the ancient Pythagoreans, or the Pre- among all ancient peoples and traditional Socratics, but with us. The modern world societies. Even modern spiritual exercises has such a superficial concept of being such as those of Ignatius of Loyola and creative and original, that it isn’t easy for the Jesuits have profoundly shamanic us to think in any other way.21 elements, such as the deathbed meditation Page 3 and visualizing one’s self in the events of Pythagoras the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, although After these discoveries about they are not usually thought of in this Parmenides and Empedocles in The Dark way.24 Places of Wisdom and Reality, Kingsley Our modern arrogance blinds us to the then turns to the older figure standing importance of these sacred, foundational behind these lovers of Divine Wisdom: practices in what we call “primitive Pythagoras, in A Story Waiting to Pierce You. societies.” It would be more accurate It is common in modern scholarship to refer to these ancient and aboriginal not to take our ancient ancestors at their societies as pristine or primordial, as they word. After all, they were less advanced contain the seeds of all culture. than we are, and were superstitious and credulous, right? True Philosophy and Logic Of course, none of that is true of the Today we think of logic as cold and ancient authorities we are dealing with, rigid. A modern icon for logic is the stoic and Kingsley rightly takes ancient sources Star Trek race of Vulcans. But logic in its very seriously. original Greek meaning (from λόγος– logos) We are very familiar with the figure of is union with the word, the self-revelation Pythagoras, the mystic, teacher, musician, of the Divine, and the pattern of all that healer, mathematician, and geometer.27 is. It is ecstatic, and so was the shamanic He was renowned for his travels,28 but it work these philosophers accomplished. might surprise you to know that there is For them, philosophy was “the love of very good evidence that he travelled even wisdom,” a true, spiritual love of Divine further, to Hyperborea. Wisdom. This changed when and Today, many may associate Hyperborea took the stage: with the Sword and Sorcery fantasies We can still trace out how, well of Robert E. Howard (Conan) and the Hyperborean Cycle of Clark Ashton Smith.29 over two thousand years ago, the However, Hyperborea was quite real for schools of Plato and Aristotle put the the ancient Greeks. Meaning “The Land seal on what was to become the most Beyond the North Wind,” it lay far to the enduring Athenian contribution to east and north. intellectual history in the West: instead of the love of wisdom, philosophy Pythagoras had several encounters with a very strange figure from afar in turned into the love of talking and the Greek world. He is attested in several arguing about the love of wisdom. places in ancient Greek histories as Abaris Since then the talking and arguing the Hyperborean.30 Abaris appeared in the have pushed everything else out of the areas of the Greek settlements carrying an picture – until now we no longer know arrow. He is consistently described as from of anything else or can even imagine Hyperborea, and as an “ walker.” Both that there could be.25 Parmenides and Empedocles were also Thus, one can see that the West known as wonderworkers.31 has taken a 2,500-year hiatus – perhaps Hyperborea was the home of that necessary – from its actual origins and most Greek of deities, Apollo,32 who is Rosicrucian purposes. Kingsley shows us that it is time consistently “Hyperborean Apollo,” in Digest No. 2 to return to the roots of our civilization Greek literature. While in Greece, he yearns 2018 once again. to return to his beloved Hyperboreans.33 Page 4 As Kingsley explains, we know that his inner community. The stillness is the ancient East and West were well paired with the Divine gift of μῆτις (mêtis, connected by what we call today, The Silk “wisdom,” skill), to perceive the sacred Road. Hyperborea, the home of both reality around us.39 Apollo and Abaris, is referring to Central This same stillness is practiced by Asia and Mongolia. Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic If anyone has any doubts that Christian Hesychasts,40 and is at the root of Pythagoras also journeyed to Mongolia, the Quakers’ and other groups’ Quietism.41 Kingsley points out that after the It is practiced in virtually all traditional destruction of the Pythagorean community mysticism, including the Sufis. It is the of Croton, there was a last outpost of polar opposite of much of contemporary Pythagoreanism at Tarentum in Apulia in society, in which there is no stillness, no southern Italy. The community and school silence, but a constant cacophony. We had a great fascination with Pythagoras’s cannot get anywhere because we cannot Hyperborean connections, and there was be still.42 even a Western portrait of a Mongol to be Abaris’s arrow represented his authority, seen there.34 and also his ability to travel in stillness. Pythagoras and Abaris When, possessed by his god Apollo as Now in the West, Abaris the Skywalker, he was, he encountered Pythagoras, he a Mongolian shaman, had come in an recognized that Pythagoras was an actual ecstatic trance to purify the areas of the incarnation of Hyperborean Apollo Greek settlements, including southern himself. He therefore bestowed his arrow Italy, to prepare on Pythagoras as for what was a sign of the to come. He divine authority was able to do to plant the so, because he seeds of Western was possessed Civilization. The by his god, commission Hyperborean is sent from Apollo. In the East to their spiritual the West.43 journeying, And plant the these shamans Pythagoreans Celebrate Sunrise, by Fyodor Bronnikov seeds of Western had learned (1869). Civilization the paradox Pythagoras did. that the key to travelling great distances rapidly is not to Alfred North Whitehead once quipped move quickly: it is to be perfectly still.35 that “[t]he safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is It is this stillness – ἡσυχία (hêsukhía, that it consists of a series of footnotes to “quiet”) – that Parmenides employs in his 44 healing work in the Temple of Apollo, Plato.” If this is true, we can see what incubation.36 Empedocles sees this went wrong: they didn’t go far enough stillness as the state of perfection opening back, to our civilization’s actual origins. to reality.37 Pythagoras insists on five years It is from Pythagoras that virtually all of silence – which must have included the fundamental components of Western stillness as part of the discipline – to enter Civilization flow. It is from this divine Page 5 incarnation from Mongolia wielding his Goddess of Birth, smile on the arrow of authority that the seed that new-born baby, would grow to be the West was born. Far In whose time the Iron Prison will to the East, to another continent, other fall to ruin messengers had gone almost 40,000 years And a golden race arises earlier, to seed civilization there as well. everywhere. The heirs of these two civilizations Apollo, the rightful king, is restored!47 would meet and exchange when the founders of the United States learned As we come to this place of stillness, from the Iroquois Confederacy, and the Peter Kingsley encourages us. arrows came to be grasped in the talons At the end of A Story Waiting to Pierce of the American Eagle45 on the Great Seal. You, he concludes that initiatory journey On its obverse our is written: thusly: Annuit Coeptis: Novus Order Saeclorum , “[The And although we may appear to Divine] has approved the New Order of have arrived at the end of this little the Ages.” incantation, there really is no end to Today, we must learn to be still. We it at all – any more than there is an must be ready to receive the gift that will end to the joy of being present with pierce through the impossible barriers that those who watch over and give birth have grown up to block our way. to worlds.48 Virgil foresaw the prophecy on the We too can continue the story that has Great Seal in his Fourth Eclogue, from no end. which the text is adapted: Let us watch. Let us be still. Read, read, Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis reread, pray, work, and thou shalt find. aetas; ______magnus ab integro saeclorum Endnotes nascitur ordo. 1. G. K. Chesterton, “O God of Earth and Altar,” 1906. Iam redit et Virgo, redeunt American Chesterton Society. Accessed June 28, 2018. Saturnia regna; https://www.chesterton.org/a-hymn-o-god-of-earth- and-altar/ iam nova progenies, caelo 2. William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming,” 1919. demittitur alto. Accessed June 28, 2018. http://www.yeatsvision.com/ Tu modo nascenti puero, quo secondnotes.html. ferrea primum 3. “Vedic Time System.” Vedic Knowledge Online. desinet, ac toto surget gens aurea Accessed June 28, 2018. http://veda.wikidot.com/vedic- time-system. mundo, 4. Hesiod, The Works and Days, 109. Accessed june 28, casta fave Lucina; tuus iam regnat 2018. https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ Apollo.46 ancient-greece/hesiod/works-days.asp 5. Christian Rebisse. “The Naometria and the Age of the At last the Final Time announced Holy Spirit,” in Rosicrucian History and Mysteries, 31-37. (San by the Sibyl will arrive: Jose: English Grand Lodge, AMORC, 2005). The procession of ages turns to its 6. “Peter Kingsley and the Discomfort of Wisdom: An origin. interview by Jeff Munnis,” Black Zinnias 1 (Winter 2003/ The Virgin returns and Saturn Spring 2004) 20–26. Accessed June 29, 2018. https:// web.archive.org/web/20120309152729/http://www. Rosicrucian reigns as before; Digest peterkingsley.org/cw3/Admin/images/Black%20 No. 2 A new race from heaven on high Zinnias.pdf 2018 descends. 7. See http://peterkingsley.org and https://catafalque.org. Page 6 8. Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (Inverness 24. In the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (1522- CA: Golden Sufi Center, 1999); Reality (Inverness CA: 1524), participants use techniques of visualization to Golden Sufi Center, 2003); A Story Waiting to Pierce You journey to sacred times and places to learn and grow in (Point Reyes, CA: Golden Sufi Center, 2010). These are buttressed by his first major work, Ancient Philosophy, love and wisdom, as I have personally experienced. Mystery, and Magic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). Also 25. Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, 31-32. see note 9 below. 26. Peter Kingsley, Reality, 483. 9. Peter Kingsley, Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity 27. See the special issue The Pythagoreans—Rosicrucian Digest (Catafalque Press, 2018). Coming in November, 2018. Accessed June 29, 2018. https://catafalque.org. 87:1 (2009). Accessed June 29, 2018. https://www. 10. C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus, ed. Sonu Shamdasani, rosicrucian.org/rosicrucian-digest-pythagoreans. trans. Mark Kyburz, et al. (New York: W.W. Norton 28. Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, 12-18, 237- & Company, 2009), 311. Cited at “About Catalfaque 238. Press.” Accessed June 29, 2018. https://catafalque.org/ publisher/. 29. Will Murray, “Introduction to The Book of Hyperborea.” 11. “Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure Accessed June 28, 2018. http://www.eldritchdark.com/ and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not articles/reviews/67/introduction-to-’the-book-of- only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.” hyperborea’ J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories” in The Monsters and the 30. William Smith, ed. (1870). “Abaris.” Dictionary of Greek and Critics, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 145. Cited in Becca Segali Tarnas, The Roman Biography and Mythology. For details on Abaris, see Red Book and the Red Book: Jung, Tolkien, and the Convergence Peter Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, 89-96 (notes). of Images. Accessed June 29, 2018. https://beccatarnas. 31. Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, Thomas Taylor, trans. (Los com/2014/05/16/the-red-book-and-the-red-book-jung- Angeles: Theosophical Publishing House, 1905), 71. tolkien-and-the-convergence-of-images-2/ 12. See the AMORC video at https://youtu.be/ 32. Peter Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, 119-122. iPeMgNH9Kxw. Note at the end that the spinning world 33. Ibid. view begins over Mongolia. 34. Peter Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, 72, 157. 13. Serge Hutin, “The Alchemists and Their Symbols,” 35. Ibid, 24-27, 111. Rosicrucian Digest 96:1 (2018), 15. 14. Adam-Veleni, Polyxeni, and Dimitra Tsangari, eds. 2015. 36. Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, 101-102. Greek colonisation: New data, current approaches; Proceedings 37. Peter Kingsley, Reality, 557-559. of the scientific meeting held in Thessaloniki (6 February 2015). 38. Giulia Minicuci, “Pythagoras the Teacher,” Mary Jones Athens: Alpha Bank, 2015. adapted and translated. Rosicrucian Digest 87:1, (1009), 14. 15. Ronald Roberson, CSP. The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey. 5th Revised Edition (Rome: Orientalia 39. Peter Kingsley, Reality, 186-187. Christiana, 1995), 124-126. These Greek Catholics form 40. Ken Parry, “Heysichasm.” The Blackwell Dictionary of the Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church in southern Eastern Christianity. (Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing, Italy and Sicily. 1999). 16. Peter Kingsley, Reality, 81. 17. John Palmer. “Parmenides”. Stanford Encyclopedia of 41. Patricia A. Ward. “Quietism”, in The Cambridge Dictionary Philosophy. Accessed June 28, 2018. https://plato.stanford. of Christian Theology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University edu/entries/parmenides/. Press, 2011). 18. Alfred Posamentier. The Pythagorean Theorem: The Story of 42. Peter Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, 79-84. Its Power and Beauty (Amherst NY: Prometheus Books 2010). 43. Ibid, 45-48. 19. Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (Inverness, 44. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in CA: Golden Sufi Center, 1999), 153-154. (1923), Part II, Ch. 1, Sec 1. 20. Ibid. 45. Peter Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, 76, 167-170. 21. Ibid. 22. Jeremy Nadler, Shamanic Wisdom of the Pyramid Texts 46. Virgil, Fourth Eclogue, lines 5-11. (Rochester VT: Inner Traditions, 2005). See also the 47. Translation in Philip K. Dick, “The Eye of the Sibyl” AMORC Podcasts on the Am Dwat: https://www. Rosicrucian Digest Online 88:2 (2008), xxiv. Accessed June rosicrucian.org/podcast/the-am-dwat/ and https:// 28, 2018. https://www.rosicrucian.org/rosicrucian- www.rosicrucian.org/podcast/meditation-on-the-am- dwat/. digest-delphi. 23. Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, 61-76. 48. Peter Kingsley, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, 84. Page 7