Rosicrucian Digest VOL 90 05
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Each issue of the Rosicrucian Digest provides members and all interested readers with a compendium of materials regarding the ongoing flow of the Rosicrucian Timeline. The articles, historical excerpts, art, and literature included in this Digest span the ages, and are not only interesting in themselves, but also seek to provide a lasting reference shelf to stimulate continuing study of all of those factors which make up Rosicrucian history and thought. Therefore, we present classical background, historical development, and modern reflections on each of our subjects, using the many forms of primary sources, reflective commentaries, the arts, creative fiction, and poetry. This magazine is dedicated• to all the women and men throughout the ages who have contributed to and perpetuated the wisdom of the Rosicrucian, Western esoteric, Tradition. May we ever be •worthy of the light with which we have been entrusted. In this issue, we contemplate• the Good, the Beauty, and the Love of Neoplatonism, a tradition that has profoundly influenced Western esotericism and all of Western culture. Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 2012 Page ii No. 1 - 2012 Vol. 90 - No. 1 Peter Kingsley, Ph.D. “Paths of the Ancient Sages: A Pythagorean History” Neoplatonism: An Introduction 2 Giulia Minicuci and Mary Jones, S.R.C. “Pythagoras the Teacher: From Samos to Metapontum” Mysticism in the Evolution of Cultures 4 Official Magazine of the Peter Bindon, FRC Worldwide Emanation and Return to the One 11 Rosicrucian Order Lloyd Abrams, Ph.D., FRC The Strange Enigma of Plotinus 17 Established in 1915 by the Supreme Charles Getts RuthGrand Phelps, Lodge S.R.C. of the English“The SchoolLanguage of Pythagoras” Jurisdiction, AMORC, Rosicrucian The Great Library of Alexandria 21 Anonymous Park, San Jose, “The CA Golden95191. Verses of Pythagoras” Bill Anderson, FRC AntoineCopyright Fabre 2012 d’Olivet, by the Supreme “GrandExcerpt from Examination of the Golden Verses” HughLodge McCague, of AMORC, Ph.D., Inc. F.R.C. All rights “Pythagoreans Hypatia and of AlexandriaSculptors: The Canon of Polykleitos2 8 reserved. Republication of any portion Valerie Dupont, SRC Melanieof Rosicrucian Richards, Digest M.Mus., is prohibited S.R.C. “Pythagoras and Music” without prior written permission of the Lisa publisher.Spencer, M.A.O.M., S.R.C. “TheAvicenna Neo-Pythagoreans at the Porta Maggiore3 2in Connie James, SRC Rome” ROSICRUCIAN DIGEST (ISSN #0035–8339) is published bi-annually Jeanfor Guesdon, $12.00 per S.R.Cyear, single copies $6.00,“Silence” Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance Neoplatonism 36 by the Grand Lodge of the English Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, D. Phil. Frater Language X, Jurisdiction,“Music AMORC, of the Spheres and Pythagorean Numerology” Inc., at 1342 Naglee Ave., San Jose, Platonic Love 43 Ben CAFinger, 95191. POSTMASTER:“Apollonius: Send Man or Myth?” Ralphaddress M. Lewis,changes F.R.C.to ROSICRUCIAN “Reviewing Elisa our Acts”Cuttjohn, SRC DIGEST at 1342 Naglee Ave., San StaffJose, of theCA 95191–0001.Rosicrucian Research LibraryThe School“A Pythagorean of Athens Bookshelf” 48 Raphael Νεοπλατωνισμός Nature: A Neoplatonic Text 50 Ralph Waldo Emerson Beauty in Art or the Art of Beauty 54 Christian Bernard, FRC Rosicrucian Ontology 56 Page 1 Neoplatonism: An Introduction f you live in the Western world today Neoplatonists synthesized the approaches or have been influenced by it, you of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others, I may be more of a Neoplatonist than addressing the individual yearning for you realize. As the mathematician and salvation from a philosophical viewpoint. philosopher Alfred North Whitehead stated, Neoplatonism posits a single source (the the general characterization of the Western One) from which all existence emanates philosophical tradition “consists of a series of and with which an individual soul can be footnotes to Plato.”1 mystically united. This philosophical school Neoplatonism is a relatively modern provided ways that the individual could term that mid-nineteenth century scholars ascend the ladder of being through theoria – created to distinguish the ideas of later contemplation of the Divine. Greek and Roman Platonists from those of Many widely accepted Neoplatonic Plato himself. Plotinus (ca. 204 – 270 CE) concepts have been perpetuated in the West is considered the first main proponent of by such diverse sources as Christianity, Neoplatonism. His intent was to use Plato’s Sufism, Kabbalah, the art and philosophy of thought as an intellectual basis for a rational the Renaissance, the Cambridge Platonists, and humane life.2 the American Transcendentalists, and others. Rosicrucian Digest No. 1 Plato (428 BCE – 348 BCE). 2012 Page 2 Neoplatonic approaches continue to be of • Contemplating the harmony tremendous importance in Jewish, Christian, and transcendental nature of the and Islamic mysticism, as well as the Beautiful and the Good elevates us esoteric schools, including Rosicrucianism. in consciousness. Neoplatonism exerted a great influence • After completing its spiritual on the Western esoteric tradition through evolution, the soul of each human the work of Marsilio Ficino, a devout being reintegrates with the Universal Neoplatonist, translator, and humanist Soul in all purity and lives in philosopher of the fifteenth century. the Divine Immanence in full The following Rosicrucian tenets consciousness. resonate with Neoplatonism: Remarkable individuals such as Plotinus, • All of Creation is permeated by a Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Augustine Universal Soul. of Hippo (Saint Augustine), Hypatia, • The ultimate goal of life is to achieve Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Avicenna, mystical union with the Divine (the Paracelsus, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della One). Mirandola, Raphael, Henry More, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Taylor, and Ralph • Knowing oneself is essential to Waldo Emerson have all been associated with achieving this goal. Neoplatonism or Neoplatonic thought. • This can be accomplished without This issue of the Rosicrucian Digest an intermediary person. introduces us to some of their lives and • Mystical contemplation is a means to ideas, and the Neoplatonic tradition over the achieve union with the Divine. millennia. As for the Rosicrucian conception of spirituality, it is based, on the one hand, upon the conviction that the Divine exists as an Absolute Intelligence having created the universe and everything therein; and, on the other hand, on the assurance that each human being possesses a soul which emanates from the Divine. —From the Rosicrucian Positio Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis (2001) ENDNOTES 1 Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, (New York: Free Press, 1979), 39. 2 PBS, “Neoplatonism,” http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/neoplat-body.html. Page 3 Mysticism in the Evolution of Cultures Peter Bindon, FRC eter Bindon, FRC, is a During the rise of materialism, many professional anthropologist of the world’s cultures deeply repressed P and botanist. He recently or even denied the organic processes that retired as Grand Master of the English link humans with nature; these processes Grand Lodge for Australia, Asia, and are birth, reproduction, and death. New Zealand after many years of Simultaneously, the spiritual awareness that service in this position. In this article, once provided humanity with a sense of Frater Bindon takes us on a journey meaningful belonging to the cosmos was through Mysticism in the Evolution of replaced by disbelief in a Cosmic force, or Cultures and shares some of the many superficial religious activities of decreasing correspondences of Rosicrucianism and vitality and relevance. Happily, Rosicrucians Neoplatonic concepts. have maintained their interest in a positive relationship with the Cosmic and are striving to be practical and constructive in offering something to the world that will assist each One of the costs today’s humans have and every human to advance this spiritual had to bear as a result of the all-too-fast quest. But, you ask, by what mechanism can technological development which followed humanity achieve this goal of advancement? on from the scientific and industrial The mechanism that advances revolutions is the inexorable loss of our civilization towards spirituality is mysticism, links with the earth and more importantly of which we Rosicrucians are probably all alienation from our spiritual source. practitioners. And there are suggestions To most of us, and perhaps in every age, that outside the Order an unprecedented progress is looked upon as synonymous with renaissance of interest in the psychology the improvement of material conditions. of mysticism and the spiritual inter- A civilization which can produce laser eye relationships that exist between all beings in surgery, space travelers, super railways, and the universe are developing among more and atomic fusion is generally regarded as being more individuals. advanced. But the enlightened few of every period in history have always recognized So, what is mysticism and what are its that true civilization is something more than origins? The non-theological use of the word material development, and that “something” “mystical” in English, meaning “a hidden is spiritualization. They have recognized that or secret thing” dates from about 1300 CE material advancements are only instruments and arrives in English from Anglo-French for providing the leisure and opportunity for where it is misterie (O.Fr. mistere). It came the development of the spirit. The nearer the into French