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Okay, so while I just revised Enneads I iv, it seems I might as well revise the joke that went with it. Perhaps you recall how I was tired after work, but since I'm a burning-the-candle-at-both-ends kind of person, forged ahead to study this particular essay, but a bird flew overhead and pooped on the page I was reading, an obvious omen to just give it a rest already.

My daughter was asking me about my angel today, as I mentioned how they have a very playful personality. She asked for examples, and so I told her a number of my angel stories. I got to this one, and while she was laughing about it, I was telling her how that page of the Enneads is still kinda messed up since of course I had to wash the poop off. She fetched the book from the shelf and asked me to show her which page it was, so I turned to the beginning of Enneads I iv and pointed to the worn-out section near the top of the page.

As I did so, I realized that I had missed the joke's punch line!

See, in the edition of the Enneads I was reading, the essay on True Happiness starts halfway down the page; the top half of the page is the last part of the prior essay on Dialectic. Here is the relevant section, with where the poop landed (which is now half-erased from being scrubbed clean) highlighted:

And while the other virtues bring the reason to bear upon particular experiences and acts, the virtue of Wisdom [...] is a certain super-reasoning much closer to the Universal; for it deals with correspondence and sequence, the choice of time for action and inaction, the adoption of this course, the rejection of that other [...].

The bird didn't just poop on my book, it literally pointed out that it would have been wise for me to rest. Lorna Byrne says somewhere that "angels find it easier to move minds than physical objects," but it seems to me that they're plenty capable of fine movements when need be...

You have four parts to your being: the Fiery consciousness that infuses all, an Airy soul, a Watery imagination, and an Earthy body. I sometimes often almost exclusively like to talk about guardian angels, but the Neoplatonists didn't consider you to have just one of these: rather, each part of your being has a guide set over it, and the one you interact with is of the degree immediately higher than whatever part of your being consciousness reflects off of.

When you are focused on your body, your goal is to master the civic virtues, and in this you are aided by the natal daimon, a being of Water who is set over the body, tending it and keeping it whole. Since this being is set over your body, it only persists with the body for the length of a single life; this is the daimon which Socrates (quoting Er) talks about in the Republic as going with a person when they enter into life, and it's the being which astrological mechanisms relate to and identify.

When you are focused on your imagination, your goal is to master the cathartic virtues, and in this you are aided by the guardian angel, a being of Air who is set over the imagination. This being is immortal and persists with a soul through all its incarnations, shepherding it back up to the spiritual world. Few people, it seems, energize at the level of Water, and this is why the Egyptian priest found it remarkable that Plotinus's guiding spirit was a god and not a mere daimon.

When you are focused on your soul, only one being remains above you, and that is Fire itself: so heroes (those of us who no longer require bodies but live in the spiritual world) no longer have a guardian angel, but are guided by God (which is why Proclus says, "as souls we are dependent upon the Intellect alone, but as souls using a body we are in need of the guardian spirit").

What happens to those guiding spirits as we ascend the ranks? As beings of Water, natal daimons aren't immortal; they outlive the body they tend, but not indefinitely, and I presume it is they who meet us after death and help us to process our life's experiences. Guardian angels, on the other hand, are immortal and persist indefinitely: I presume that even if they aren't our guardians any more in the spiritual world, that they help us acclimate to that world when we first return there, and after that remain our good and close friends.

I have been wondering about this in the context of the Odyssey. As I have said, if Odusseus is the individual soul in the process of reascent, then Ogugia is the limit of the world of Earth, Skheria is the limit of the world of Water, and Ithake is "home," the world of Air. It is noteworthy that Hermes aids Odusseus on Aiaia (giving him moly to protect him from Kirke) and on Ogugia (conveying Zeus's will that Kalupso release Odusseus), but thereafter he is aided by Athenaie (advising him on Skheria, helping him to reclaim his house on Ithake). So in that sense, Hermes acts like Odusseus's natal daimon, while Athenaie acts like Odusseus's guardian angel.

(It is amusing to me that these two deities are the two Olumpians which are described as children. Athenaie in particular is not often depicted this way in modern times, but that is exactly what "Pallas" means: "pre-pubescent girl." Presumably their depiction as children reflects their minor status as compared to other daimons or angels (or gods, like Zeus and Demeter). Certainly, Athenaie's fiery outbursts at Zeus make more sense when she's seen in this way—"daddy, you don't even care about Odusseus!" as she stomps her feet—and I would love to see people draw Athenaie as swimming in an aigis much, much too big for her!)

ὄρνις γάρ σφιν ἐπῆλθε περησέμεναι μεμαῶσιν αἰετὸς ὑψιπέτης ἐπ᾽ ἀριστερὰ λαὸν ἐέργων φοινήεντα δράκοντα φέρων ὀνύχεσσι πέλωρον ζωὸν ἔτ᾽ ἀσπαίροντα, καὶ οὔ πω λήθετο χάρμης, κόψε γὰρ αὐτὸν ἔχοντα κατὰ στῆθος παρὰ δειρὴν ἰδνωθεὶς ὀπίσω: ὃ δ᾽ ἀπὸ ἕθεν ἧκε χαμᾶζε ἀλγήσας ὀδύνῃσι, μέσῳ δ᾽ ἐνὶ κάββαλ᾽ ὁμίλῳ, αὐτὸς δὲ κλάγξας πέτετο πνοιῇς ἀνέμοιο. Jove's bird on sounding pinions beat the skies; A bleeding serpent of enormous size His talons trussed; alive, and curling round, He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound: Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey, In airy circle wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, and rends the heaven with cries; Amidst the host the fallen serpent lies. (Homer, Iliad XII ll. 200–7, tr. Alexander Pope.)

As I said previously, I think that the myth of Isis describes the macrocosm, the myth of Osiris describes the mesocosm, and the myth of Horus describes the microcosm. Meditating on the first, therefore, taught me all sorts of interesting things about the structure of the cosmos. Meditating on the second can, presumably, teach us many things about society, but I confess that (as something of a hermit and a misanthrope) my meditations on the topic have not been very fruitful. But the last is, perhaps, the most interesting of the three to me, because, given that Fire has descended and divided, meditating on it should teach us what we can do about it.

Alas, though, what Plutarch gives us to work with is so sparse! So little of the ancient mysteries are recorded, and Plutarch has explicitly neutered much of what little was available in the interests of propriety. I have endeavored to reconstruct as much of the myth as I can from other sources, but even with those, there is not a lot to work with. (We do happen to have a papyrus specifically concerning this part of the myth, but it's very fragmentary and pretty weird, and I had trouble making much use of it.) So, just like in the Isis and Osiris myths, I've wished to attach an equivalent Greek myth to compare against. I had two candidates especially to dig into for this.

The first was the myth of Apollo, which is recounted in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. (This is pretty reasonable since Apollo is implicitly related to Horus by Homer, Odyssey XV 525–6; and explicitly equated with Horus by Herodotus, History II cxliv; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History I xxv; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris XII; etc.; and Leto is explicitly equated with Isis by Isidorus, the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, etc.) In that myth, Zeus is Osiris; Hera, Set; Leto (Lycian lada, "wife"), Isis; Asteria ("starry," cf. astral), Nephthys; Apollo, Horus; Artemis (here, daughter of Zeus and Asteria rather than Apollo's twin), Anubis; and Delos, Buto. Leto wanders before giving birth to Apollo in Delos in the same way that Isis wanders before giving birth to Horus in Buto; Leto does not nurse Apollo but he is fed ambrosia and nectar in the same way that Isis does not nurse Diktys; finally, Apollo slays the Delphic serpent in the same way that Horus's men slay the serpent chasing Tewaret. The Apollo myth came to Greece by way of Lycia—presumably this is why Apollo was on the side of the Trojans in the Iliad?—and since the myth claims the first priests of Apollo were sailors from Crete, I suppose that the transmission of this myth is from Egypt, to Crete, to Lycia, to Greece.

The second was the myth of Io, which is recounted in Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library II i. (Again, this is pretty reasonable since Io is explicitly equated with Isis by Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, I xxiv; Ovid, Metamorphoses IX l. 666 ff.; the Oxyrhynchus papyrus; the Suda; etc.) Io is turned into a cow in the same way Isis's head is replaced with a cow's; Hermes frees Io in the same way as Thoth rescues Isis; Hera induces Io to wander in the same way as Set induces Isis to wander; Io gives birth to Epaphus when she reaches Egypt in the same way as Isis gives birth to Horus upon her return to Egypt; Hera's kidnapping of Epaphus causes Io to search for him in the same way as Set's dismemberment of Osiris causes Isis to search for him, producing Horus; the queen of Byblos nurses Epaphus in the same way as Isis "nurses" Diktys; and finally, upon her return to Egypt, Io becomes queen and institutes the mysteries in the same way as Isis institutes the mysteries after finding Osiris's pieces. Since Io is said to be the ancestor of a great many heroes (Perseus, Cadmus, Heracles, Minos, etc.)—some of whom are directly related to Dionysus—I suppose that those myths all share some chain of transmission, though it is difficult to say exactly how.

Sadly, since only rags and tatters match up—and not even in order!—neither shed a lot of light on our myth. While pondering this in my perplexity, though, my angel (ever a tease) posed a riddle to me, which lead me to realize that the story of Tiresias advising Odysseus in Hades (Odyssey XI) is the mirror image of Osiris training Horus from Hades. Tiresias prophesies the last leg of Odysseus's homeward journey, and the structure of this prophecy matches closely with the Horus myth:

I find the parallels between these two narratives compelling, and will need to reread the Odyssey with the Isis and Osiris myths in mind. I have, in the past, been fairly critical of using Homer as a theological source, but one cannot dispute that the blind Chian casts a long shadow over the philosophers; his stories obviously came from somewhere, and these days I am becoming increasingly suspicious that "somewhere" means "Egypt" in the same way that "Western philosophy" means "Plato." (Plutarch (Isis and Osiris XXXIV) says as much, and there are those legends that Homer studied under the "imagination of Egypt;" cf. Photius, Library CXC; Eustathius on the Odyssey I.) Anyway, the linking of Horus and Odysseus puts us on firm ground, since Plotinus (Enneads I vi §8–9) and Thomas Taylor (The Wanderings of Ulysses) both explain what Odysseus's journey means in a manner agreeable, it seems to me, with the interpretation of Empedocles that I have been working with, so let's take a look.

Osiris's questions to Horus (D1, above) run like this:

Osiris. What do you think is the best thing?

Horus. To avenge one's parents!

Osiris. Okay. What animal is most useful to a soldier?

Horus thinks for a moment. A horse.

Osiris raises his eyebrows. Why?

Horus. Well, a lion would be better in a pinch, but without a horse, how could you annihilate the fleeing enemy!?

Osiris beams. Yes! You are ready, my son!

I should emphasize how out-of-character this is for Osiris: he is elsewhere described as gentle, charming, laughter-loving, fond of dance, and he went out of his way (as king of Egypt) to civilize the world through pursuation rather than force. Horus, on the other hand, is bloodthirsty and merciless. If you've ever seen a falcon eat, perhaps that's unsurprising, but in terms of the myth, I believe Horus is so determined because there is no half-assing spirituality: if one is to try to ascend, they must devote their whole being to it; if they do not, they cannot become whole, and the soul must be whole to be like Fire, which is indivisible. So even though Osiris is, himself, peaceful and gentle, he encourages Horus's resolve of Necessity: after all, Horus is the son of stern-and-severe Isis, too, and having the backbone she furnishes is table stakes for the difficult climb up the mountain. Tiresias says as much to Odysseus, too: "You seek to return home, mighty Odysseus, and home is sweet as honey; but heaven will make your voyage hard and dangerous, because I do not think the Earthshaker will fail to see you and he is furious at you for blinding his son." Odysseus is less bloodthirsty than Horus, but nonetheless resigns himself to his fate: "Alas, Tiresias, if that is the thread which the gods have spun, then I have no say in the matter."

Then we have the three battles between Horus and Set, only the first of which is really described in any detail. In this part of the myth, I don't think Set is acting as Air itself, but rather as something of a proxy for Strife; this is because Air is separatory from the perspective of Fire, and Horus is "avenging" Osiris. The three battles represent the individual soul transcending each of Earth, Water, and Air, respectively, in the process of returning to its Source. This isn't as straightforward as it seems at first, though, because of a couple structural considerations stemming from how the natures of the four roots. First, Earth and Water are both material and separate out under the influence of Strife simultaneously, so a soul still requires the use of a material body until it has transcended both. Second, Fire is indivisible and descends whole and therefore must reascend whole; this implies that the third battle with Set cannot occur until all souls are ready to transcend Air simultaneously, which is something that only occurs at the end of time, when the cosmos again comes completely under the influence of Love.

What does it mean for the soul to transcend the roots? Plato's Diotima discusses it (in a roundabout sort of way) in the Symposium (201D ff.) and Plotinus discusses it in Enneads I ii "On Virtue" (which Porphyry summarizes, more lucidly I think, in the 34th of his Sentences). One's Earthy part is the physical body, the soul's "bestial" part: to transcend Earth is to move beyond purely sensory experience and gain the ability to consider ideals on the same level as them; this is the mastery of Plato's "civic virtues," the ability to live a civilized life as a man rather than the savage life of an animal. One's Watery part is one's desiring faculty, its hungers and needs: to transcend Water is to move beyond material desires; this is the mastery of Plotinus's "purificatory virtues," the ability to cease to concern oneself with material things in favor of spiritual things. One's Airy part is the soul's emotional faculty, its ability to experience and judge things from an individual perspective: to transcend Air is to move beyond individuality completely; this is the mastery of Plotinus's "contemplative virtues," the ability to process things from all perspectives simultaneously, rather than one-at-a-time. Diotima says concordantly that one climbs the ladder of love from personal beauty to general beauty, from general beauty to abstract beauty, and from abstract beauty to universal beauty. Meanwhile, Porphyry explains that mastery of the civic virtues makes one a human; the purificatory virtues, an angel; and the contemplative virtues, a god (indeed, in this context, the god Osiris-Horus specifically, as all souls return to their Source).

Only the first of these is illustrated in the Horus myth, the transcending of Earth. That it is Earth and not Water is made clear in a few ways. First, we have the killing of the snake: we have seen destroyed phalluses already, with Isis cutting Osiris out of the heather stalk (representing matter being made to support other-than-bestial forms) and with the fish eating Osiris's penis (representing society being structured to foster an other-than-bestial life). The killing of the snake itself seems to be one "hacking to pieces" (analysing and overcoming) their bestial nature. Second, Tewaret is a concubine of Set's—a "lesser Nephthys," perhaps a being of Water rather than Water itself—which suggests to me the harnessing of desire (for peace, for comfort, for security, etc.) to create a civilized existence; that is, it is for this desire that the bestial nature is hacked to pieces. Third, Horus's violent deposing of Isis is a pretty literal—if violent, calling to mind the words of another initiate—description of the individual soul transcending Earth.

In the Odysseus story, this first battle plays out between Ææa (representing the bestial life, which is why everyone is a pig except Odysseus, who has Hermes—intelligence—guiding him) and Ogygia (home to Calypso, the seductive daughter of Atlas "who separates Earth from Heaven"). Odysseus encounters many monsters and troubles, and while he manages to escape from each (with difficulty), his men are unable to control themselves and are not so lucky, and so Odysseus comes to Ogygia alone. From this, Thomas Taylor (riffing on Plotinus, Enneads II iii §13?) makes the excellent point that there are three categories of souls. The first, which he likens to Heracles (and I might liken to Pythagoras or the Buddha or Jesus), is mighty and is capable of saving both themselves and others; if Odysseus was one of these, he and his men would have traveled swiftly back to Ithaca. No, Odysseus (who I might liken to dear Porphyry), rather, is of the second category, strong enough to save himself but not strong enough to save others, and this is why he struggles and strains to return to Ithaca, and manages it only after tremendous delay with neither his men nor his ship nor his plunder. (The third category is the mass of men, strong enough to accomplish nothing but get eaten by some monster or drown at sea—that is, to be lost in sense experience. Here, I disagree a little with Taylor, as eventually all souls must return to their Source, but it may take such time and suffering as to make Odysseus's journey seem luxurious by comparison.)

The episode with Horus's eye is pretty opaque, and in fact Plutarch omits it entirely from his recording of the myth, but it becomes much more understandable when we compare it to the Odysseus story. Notice how, in D3, Horus loses his eye while Odysseus loses his ship, while in D8, Horus gets his eye back and Odysseus is ferried to Ithaca on a Phæacian ship; these imply that Horus's eye and Odysseus's ship are, symbolically, the same. I didn't notice any references describing it specifically, but Odysseus's original ship is presumably a normal one (if of fine quality); on the other hand, Homer tells us the Phæacian ships are magical, the gift of Poseidon and "swift as a thought." Recall what Empedocles says of sight:

γαίῃ μὲν γὰρ γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν, ὕδατι δ' ὕδωρ,
αἰθέρι δ' αἰθέρα δῖον, ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀίδηλον,
στοργὴν δὲ στοργῇ, νεῖκος δέ τε νείκει λυγρῷ.

We see Earth by Earth, Water by Water,
Aither by divine Aither, Fire by destructive Fire,
Love by Love, and Strife by baneful Strife.

I think Horus's eye and Odysseus's ship represent what one is capable of seeing: Horus's original (mundane) eye is the Earth-eye by which we see Earth, while the returned eye is the (magical) Water-eye by which we see Water. (In theory, there is also a (divine) Air-eye by which we see Air, but this last is inherent to the individual soul and it doesn't need a vehicle to house it, which is why Horus doesn't lose his eye a second time and why Odysseus's final journey must be made on foot and without the use of a ship at all.) It is of interest to me that Horus does without his eye for a while, able neither to properly see Earth nor Water, since I have experienced this myself: I have nearly lost the ability to perceive and enjoy the beauty of Earth, but I am only very slowly developing the ability to see and appreciate higher beauty, so there is something of a gap where I seem to have a foot in both worlds but it feels more like having a foot in neither. (I wonder if this is what St. John of the Cross was talking about when he describes "the dark night of the soul.") In any case, just as we see Odysseus climbing the ladder of roots in his use of vehicles, we see the same thing reiterated in the guidance he receives: in escaping from Circe and Calypso (transcending Earth), Odysseus is guided by Hermes, who (in terms I've discussed previously) is his intelligence; in reclaiming his household (transcending Water), Odysseus is guided by Athena, who is his wisdom; however, Odysseus receives no help at all in propitiating Poseidon (transcending Air), since in doing so he is guided only by Truth.

At the same time as the soul loses its eye for material things, Set is said to lose his testicles, for which the Pythagoreans' famous censure of "beans" comes to mind:

An old and false opinion has seized men and prevailed, that the philosopher Pythagoras [...] abstained from the bean, which the Greeks call κύαμος. In accordance with this opinion, the poet Callimachus wrote:

As Pythagoras, I tell you too:
Abstain from beans, a malign food.

[...] It seems that the cause of the error about not dining on beans is that in the poem of Empedocles, who followed Pythagoras's teachings, this verse is found:

δειλοί, πάνδειλοι, κυάμων ἄπο χεῖρας ἔχεσθαι

Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands off beans!

For most people thought that κύαμοι refered to the legume, as is the common usage. But those who have studied Empedocles's poem with more care and learning say that in this place κύαμοι means "testicles" and that these are called κύαμοι in the Pythagorean manner, cryptically and symbolically, because they conceive [punning κύαμος "bean" with κυεῖν "to conceive"] and supply the power of human reproduction. So, in that verse Empedocles wanted to draw men away not from eating beans but from a desire for sex.

(Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights IV xi.)

The first battle closes with Set in chains, brought by a triumphant Horus before Queen Isis. In the same way that gentle Osiris acts bizarrely in this myth, so too does his wife: normally severe and uncompromising, here she meekly lets her husband's murderer go free. The reason for this is, of course, that Earth is the extremity of the cosmos and most under the influence of Strife: Isis has no power over Set, whether she wishes it or not. Horus's decapitating of Isis and claiming the throne demonstrates that he asserts control over Earth, and is no longer bound to submit to her will: having mastered the civic virtues, he now is bound by a higher law than those of the Law-Giver. The replacement of Isis's head with that of a cow's shows that, rather than Earth being the master (as a human), she is now a docile beast of burden (as a cow): since Horus has mastered being human, the body can now be recognized as a mere tool rather than one's whole being. This is similar to Odysseus on Ogygia: Calypso is ever trying to seduce Odysseus, but even with all her blandishments, Odysseus simply no longer cares for creature-comforts, even those of a goddess, but is completely detached from them and ever sits on the shore looking towards Ithaca and hoping to see even a wisp of smoke on the horizon. Calypso even promises him immortality, but Calypso's sort of immortality is just more turnings on the wheel of rebirth.

While I am following what I think is a Pythagorean take on the myth, it must be noted that Manetho (Epitome of Physical Doctrines) and Diodorus Siculus (Library of History I xi) say that the Egyptians came up with all this by watching the Sun and Moon in their revolutions in the sky. I have avoided following that interpretation for now, though it has much to recommend it. (For example, the fourteen pieces that Osiris is chopped into is the two week period of the waxing Moon; Set is said to have killed Osiris under the light of the full Moon; Set is likened to the eclipses, which "eat" the Sun; etc.) But consider: if the Sun is Osiris, the soul, and the Moon is Isis, the body, then the Moon is full when she is furthest from the Sun; this is when the soul is lost in matter and the body shines brightest. But just after this, as the Moon begins to return to the Sun, she wanes, and at the very point when the body is less bright than the soul (that is, less than half of it is illuminated), the Moon becomes crescent-shaped. Perhaps this is also what is signified by Isis taking on the horns of a cow.

After the triumph over Earth comes the trial of Horus, and given the placement in the myth and the overall symbolism of a courtroom, this must surely refer to the judgement of the dead for their deeds and misdeeds in life (cf. J. Gwyn Griffiths, The Conflict of Horus and Seth III). Unlike the cautionary episodes in the myth of Isis (e. g. of Diktys and his brother), this episode is salutary: Horus has acted righteously and is rewarded for his behavior, as his eye is returned to him and his authority is legitimized. In the Odyssey, Zeus judges Odysseus to be "beyond all men in understanding and in sacrifice to the deathless gods" and lends the explicit support of Olympus to his return home. The message here is that if one acts righteously and devotes themselves to heaven, then heaven will return the favor and support them in their upward journey. Since, as I have said, one must transcend both Earth and Water to become free of material existence, and since Water has not yet been transcended by this point in the narrative, then I must suppose that this refers to reincarnation into circumstances more conducive to their spiritual growth.

Reincarnation wasn't a widespread belief in ancient Greece (cf. Homer, Iliad XXI l. 569); in fact, it was considered a peculiarity, and perhaps the keynote, of Pythagoras's teachings:

[Pythagoras] was accustomed to speak of himself in this manner: that he had formerly been Æthalides, and had been accounted the son of Mercury, and that Mercury had desired him to select any gift he pleased except immortality; he accordingly had requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of what had happened to him. [...] At a subsequent period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus, and while he was Euphorbus, he used to say that he had formerly been Æthalides, and that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased, and he had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the souls.

But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed into Hermotimus, and when he wished to convince people of this, he went into the territory of the Branchidæ, and going into the temple of Apollo, he showed his shield which Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering, for he said that he, when he sailed from Troy, had offered up his shield which was already getting worn out, to Apollo, and that nothing remained but the ivory face which was on it. When Hermotimus died, then he said that he had become Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos, and that he still recollected everything, how he had been formerly Æthalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. When Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and he still recollected all the aforementioned circumstances.

(Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII i §4. Aulus Gellius (Attic Nights IV xi) adds that Pythagoras also claimed to have been "a beautiful courtesan named Alco.")

Empedocles famously echoes Pythagoras's teachings:

ἤδη γάρ ποτ' ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε
θάμνος τ' οἰωνός τε καὶ ἐξ άλὸς ἔμπορος ἰχθύς.

For I have already become a boy and a girl
And a bush and a bird and a fish from the sea.

This is one of those teachings that causes modern commentators to suppose that Pythagoras got his doctrines from the East, but I see no reason not to suppose that the Egyptians had some similar belief. Herodotus says so explicitly (Histories II cxxiii); meanwhile, Diogenes Laertius (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers VIII ii §2) tells us that Plato was an initiate of the Pythagoreans but, like Empedocles, was expelled for revealing the mysteries in writing; and he espouses the doctrine in the Republic, and in the Phædrus (246A–9D) he goes further and says that normal souls must struggle for ten thousand years to "grow their wings," but those souls who choose philosophical lives three times in a row "will have wings given them." In the Odyssey, after Zeus judges Odysseus favorably, he has three days' swim ahead of him before he is given the use of the Phæacian ship, "swift as wings," exhibiting nearly identical symbolism. Since the return voyage part of the Odyssey fits the Horus myth so closely, it seems plausible to me that the teaching ultimately comes from Heliopolis but the detail was either not available to Plutarch, or else was excised from the myth along with Isis's beheading and the loss of Horus's eye. (It's hard to say which! In describing the Eleusinian mysteries (On the Man in the Moon XXVII ff.), Plutarch speaks of triumphant souls being given "wreaths of feathers," and while he connects the Isis myth to his explanation there (Isis and Osiris XLIV ff.) it's perhaps more likely that he's simply following Plato.)

Not only does wisdom support Odysseus in those philosophical lives, but Zeus gives explicit divine aid comes in the form of the White Goddess (Ino, daughter of Cadmus, whom Zeus divinized), who gives Odysseus her veil so that he might safely reach land, which seems to me to symbolise those dæmons who call to the souls nearing the upper world as (for example) those of Socrates or Plotinus.

In any case, after the three philosophical lives, Horus defeats Set a second time, meanwhile Odysseus is "given wings" in the form of the Phæacian ship, returns to Ithaca, and sets his house in order, turning out all things discordant and foreign. (Indeed, the suitors remind me of nothing so much as of Plotinus's analogy of the assembly (Enneads IV iv §17), where the "brawlers and roarers" overpower the wise-but-quiet words of the best; but here, the best overrules them.) The individual soul has thus traversed the ocean (transcended Water) and become a hero: no longer do they require a material body, but they proceed to live in the world of Air as a pure soul alongside the golden race. What does the soul do there? I really don't know, and I suspect we couldn't comprehend it anyway: Horus is the child of Fire and Earth, and so those two realms must be completely natural to him; similarly, he was nursed by Water, and so while he is a foreigner there, it is at least familiar to him; but he lacks that same sort of connection with Air, and so it must be rather alien. I suppose, like Socrates (Phædo 67A–C) that we should simply have the good hope that when we reach there, that we shall "be with the pure and know all that is pure."

There remains only the third battle between Horus and Set, and for Odysseus to propitiate Poseidon. I think it very appropriate that, while it is foretold by Tiresias, the Odyssey ends before Odysseus actually goes and accomplishes it. This is because Fire is indivisible: in the same way as it must descend whole, it must also reascend whole. This means that the soul finally rejoining its Source and Goal can only occur for all souls simultaneously countless eons from now, after the last souls finally leave the material world behind and the roots begin to collapse together again. At that point, this cycle of the cosmos will end, all will be joined in Love (as Tiresias says, "your people shall be happy round you"), and a new cycle will begin where Fire will descend into matter anew (as Tiresias says, "death shall come to you from the sea"). All this is beyond the scope of the individual, and that is why the Odyssey, which is about the individual soul, ends before it takes place; in any case, I imagine this final battle to be much more sedate, requiring none of the tremendous trauma of the first two: merely long ages of time.

And with that, we're through the mysteries of Isis, Osiris, and Horus! (Phew!) I never expected to spend five months on a mere nine pages of prose, and yet exploring them has helped me to make a lot more sense of Greek mythology, the philosophical tradition, and my own personal theology and place in the cosmos; so I can see why my angel led me to it and encouraged me to study it.

While I'm satisfied with my first—erm, first-and-a-half?—pass through the myth itself, there are still a few bits and pieces I'd like to follow-up on. What's the deal with Perseus and Andromeda? There's supposedly an echo of the myth in the Iliad XIV, is that so? I've shown the second half of the Odyssey to fit the myth, but what about the rest of it? I've mentioned that I think Apuleius was an initiate of Isis, Osiris, and Horus; but does his myth of Cupid and Psyche fit, too? Is there anything to be gained by more deeply considering the Sun and Moon cycle as the origin of the myth? These are all interesting to me and you may see a smattering of smaller and less formal posts on them in the coming weeks and months as I have a chance to explore them, but they're tangential to the myth itself and so I'm considering them more in the mode of appendices.

One of those bits and pieces, though, is Achilles; I've been re-reading the Iliad over the holidays, so why don't I deal with him briefly, here? I mentioned before that his birth and childhood match the myth of Isis; it is also the case, I think, that his prophecy and death match the myth of Horus. Achilles's signature characteristic is wrath, just like Horus's is vengeance. At Horus's trial, it is said that Geb, his grandfather, was the judge; in the same way, Achilles's grandfather, Æacus, is the judge of the dead in the underworld. Just like Horus, Achilles is a demi-god, possessing a mortal half (his body) and an immortal half (his name); and just like Odysseus with Penelope and Calypso, Achilles got to choose which half was which: he could live forever as a nobody, or die young but be immortalized in glory. Achilles made the right choice, favoring soul over body. Will you?

Empedocles writes,

All the potions which there are as a defence against evils and old age
you shall learn, since for you alone will I accomplish all these things.
You shall put a stop to the strength of tireless winds, [...]
and again, if you wish, you shall bring the winds back again, [...]
and you shall bring from Hades the strength of a man who has died. [...]
For if, thrusting [my words] deep down into your crowded heart,
you gaze on them in kindly fashion, with pure meditations,
absolutely all these things will be with you throughout your life,
and from these you acquire many others, for these things themselves
will expand to form each character, according to the nature of each.

That is, if you learn the true nature of things, you will gain all manner of magical powers and other things besides. Personally, I find the pursuit of power uninteresting, but the old magus isn't wrong: meditating on his poem has, indeed, given me other things, to my mind of far greater worth than mere magic. I'll be talking about some of these once I get my next Isis and Osiris post together, but in the meantime, let me share one of them with you that's tangential to that myth.

Empedocles's four roots are not mere elements; in fact, I think:

1. Fire, Air, Water, and Earth are all gods. (Thus we are firmly in polytheistic territory.)
2. Fire and Air are spiritual, while Water and Earth are material.
3. Fire is (among other things) νοῦς "Consciousness." There is only one Consciousness but that Fire emits Light, and every ray of Light is a ψυχή "soul." Since there is only one Fire and nothing can be experienced apart from it, there is a sense in which it is not only a god, but the god. (Thus we are also firmly in monotheistic territory.)
4. Air is mediate between Fire and the material world. It is (among other things) the substance of θυμός "emotion" and home of the higher category of daimons.
5. Water is mediate between the spiritual world and Earth. It is (among other things) the subtle matter of the underworld, "the stuff dreams are made of" [NB: video link], the substance of ἐπιθυμία "desire," and home of both the lower category of daimons and the dead.
6. Earth is (among other things) the dense matter of the waking world, the substance of the body and sensation, and home of the living.

I've mentioned that I think this model is Egyptian in origin and imported to Greece several times; we see versions of it used all through classical philosophy, from Plato to "Hermes Trismegistus" to Plotinus. One of these imports was by Pythagoras, from whom Empedocles got it. I think another was by "Orpheus" (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History I xxiii), from whom Hesiod got it, and I would like to consider my favorite statement of theology, Hesiod's Ages of Man (Works and Days ll. 106–201) in light of it. The poet says that his story is about "how gods and mortals come from the same source," and so I think he is speaking of the nature and placement of beings in the cosmos in the above model.

If you wish, I shall recapitulate another story, correctly and skillfully, and you lay it up in your spirit: how the gods and mortal human beings came about from the same origin.

Let me give some preliminary keys first. Remember that Zeus is Fire, Hades is Air, Nestis is Water, and Hera is Earth. The Cyclopes gifted Zeus his thunderbolts, which are the rays of Light emitted by Fire (e.g. souls). They also gifted Hades his cap of invisibility, which is the incorporeality of Air and its denizens. When Hesiod speaks of "the immortals who dwell on Olympus," he is referring to the gods (e.g. roots) collectively. When he speaks of Zeus, he is referring to Fire specifically; the "time of Zeus" is the world subordinate to Fire; e.g. the material world of Water and Earth. When he speaks of the "time of Cronus," he is referring to the world of Zeus; e.g. the spiritual world of Fire and Air.

Golden was the race of speech-endowed human beings which the immortals, who have their mansions on Olympus, made first of all. They lived at the time of Cronus, when he was king in the sky; just like gods they spent their lives, with a spirit free from care, entirely apart from toil and distress. Worthless old age did not oppress them, but they were always the same in their feet and hands, and delighted in festivities, lacking in all evils; and they died as if overpowered by sleep. They had all good things: the grain-giving field bore crops of its own accord, much and unstinting, and they themselves, willing, mildmannered, shared out the fruits of their labors together with many good things, wealthy in sheep, dear to the blessed gods. But since the earth covered up this race, by the plans of great Zeus they are fine spirits upon the earth, guardians of mortal human beings: they watch over judgments and cruel deeds, clad in invisibility, walking everywhere upon the earth, givers of wealth; and this kingly honor they received.

The immortal, happy, and carefree golden race are Empedocles's δολιχαίωνες δαίμονες "daimons with lives a mile long." These are the beings that natively inhabit Air and never needed to descend into the material world at all to actualize their purpose. They are immortal since Fire and Air are spiritual substances. (They "die as if overpowered by sleep" if they violate the oaths of Necessity and thus fall into the material world.) They are "clad in invisibility" because they are made of Air. They are happy because Air is the substance of emotion; they are carefree since, without a Watery or Earthy component, they do not have appetites or needs. The overall description of the race is, presumably, what life is like in the world of Air (at least to the degree we can comprehend it).

Afterward those who have their mansions on Olympus made a second race, much worse, of silver, like the golden one neither in body nor in mind. A boy would be nurtured for a hundred years at the side of his cherished mother, playing in his own house, a great fool. But when they reached adolescence and arrived at the full measure of puberty, they would live for a short time only, suffering pains because of their acts of folly. For they could not restrain themselves from wicked outrage against each other, nor were they willing to honor the immortals or to sacrifice upon the holy altars of the blessed ones, as is established right for human beings in each community. Then Zeus, Cronus's son, concealed these in anger, because they did not give honors to the blessed gods who dwell on Olympus. But since the earth covered up this race too, they are called blessed mortals under the earth—in second place, but all the same honor attends upon these as well.

The long-lived but foolish silver race are those beings that natively inhabit Water and never needed to descend into Earth to actualize their purpose. They are long-lived since Water is much more mobile than Earth, but are mortal since Water is material. They seem unaging until just before they die since, not having an Earthy component, they have no fixed form. People who have near-death experiences report that beings appear to support and assist them and that these beings always conform to one's expectations or beliefs: Greek pagans might meet Vestal daimons, Christians might meet Jesus or St. Peter, Buddhists might meet a Boddhisatva, etc.; this is presumably because these beings are members of the silver race and because Water always takes the shape of its container. Similarly, the overall description of the race might be what our sojourns are like in the world of Water.

(Regarding those Vestal daimons, note that Latin Vesta is Greek Hestia, who I have hypothesized is Egyptian Nephthys and Empedocles's Nestis, who is Water. Thus Vestal daimons are precisely the ones we should expect to meet when we die.)

Zeus the father made another race of speech-endowed human beings, a third one, of bronze, not similar to the silver one at all, out of ash trees—terrible and strong they were, and they cared only for the painful works of Ares and for acts of violence. They did not eat bread, but had a strong-hearted spirit of adamant—unapproachable they were, and upon their massive limbs grew great strength and untouchable hands out of their shoulders. Their weapons were of bronze, bronze were their houses, with bronze they worked; there was not any black iron. And these, overpowered by one another's hands, went down nameless into the dank house of chilly Hades: black death seized them, frightful though they were, and they left behind the bright light of the sun.

When the earth covered up this race too, Zeus, Cronus's son, made another one in turn upon the bounteous earth, a fourth one, more just and superior, the godly race of men-heroes, who are called demigods, the generation before our own upon the boundless earth. Evil war and dread battle destroyed these, some under seven-gated Thebes in the land of Cadmus while they fought for the sake of Oedipus' sheep, others brought in boats over the great gulf of the sea to Troy for the sake of fair-haired Helen. There, the end of death shrouded some of them, but upon others Zeus the father, Cronus's son, bestowed life and habitations far from human beings and settled them at the limits of the earth; and these dwell with a spirit free of care on the Islands of the Blessed beside deep-eddying Ocean—happy heroes, for whom the grain-giving field bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing three times a year.

If only then I did not have to live among the fifth men, but could have either died first or been born afterward! For now the race is indeed one of iron. And they will not cease from toil and distress by day, nor from being worn out by suffering at night, and the gods will give them grievous cares. Yet all the same, for these people too good things will be mingled with evil ones. But Zeus will destroy this race of speech-endowed human beings too, when at their birth the hair on their temples will be quite gray. Father will not be like-minded with sons, nor sons with their father, nor guest with host, nor comrade with comrade, nor will the brother be dear, as he once was. They will dishonor their aging parents at once; they will reproach them, addressing them with grievous words—cruel men, who do not know of the gods' retribution!—nor would they repay their aged parents for their rearing. Their hands will be their justice, and one man will destroy the other's city. Nor will there be any grace for the man who keeps his oath, nor for the just man or the good one, but they will give more honor to the doer of evil and the outrageous. Justice will be in their hands, and reverence will not exist, but the bad man will harm the superior one, speaking with crooked discourses, and he will swear an oath upon them. And Envy, evil-sounding, gloating, loathsome-faced, will accompany all wretched human beings. Then indeed will Reverence and Indignation cover their beautiful skin with white mantles, leave human beings behind and go from the broad-pathed earth to the race of the immortals, to Olympus. Baleful pains will be left for mortal human beings, and there will be no safeguard against evil.

The remainder of the races all refer to those beings who descended all the way to Earth (e.g. incarnated as humans). The brazen race are the unrighteous, who after they die live in the world of Water for a time before reincarnating: they are thus, in a sense, the non-native inhabitants of Water, living beside and under the guidance of the silver race. The heroic race are the righteous, who after they die transition through the world of Water and go on to the Blessed Isles ruled by Cronus (e.g. the world of Air): they are thus, in a sense, the non-native inhabitants of Air, living beside and under the guidance of the golden race. The brazen race precedes the heroic race because it takes many lifetimes for one to develop and grow. Finally, the iron race are those who are presently living in the world of Earth. Their hard labor is because of the density and rigidity of Earth. They grow gray at a younger and younger age as the soul grows more and more world-weary every time it reincarnates. That they seem abandoned by the gods and must seek their own justice may be seen all around us: it is an injunction to accept the labors of this world and become as a hero from it.

Per Plotinus and Proclus, I presume some of us mortals have tutelary daimons of the golden race, while others of us have tutelary daimons of the heroic race. Whichever they are, may we follow them whole-heartedly...

I woke up this morning with the myth of Osiris ringing in my head, trying to correlate it with other myths I've read. After breakfast, my daughters and I were out looking at various garage sales in town; one of them had a complete children's encyclopedia set, and since we home-school our daughters, I thought it might be worth investigating. I picked up and opened a volume at random, and the page fell open to a mosaic of Dionysus, riding on his leopard. Funny, I thought, since Dionysus is Osiris, and I was just thinking about that... I then picked up a second volume and opened it at random, and the page fell open to the entry for Plutarch (who wrote Isis and Osiris and whose name I was very surprised to see in a children's encyclopedia).

Well!

"They have a saying in Chicago, 'Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; the third time, it's enemy action.'" I haven't managed to make headway for a while on Proclus, and it seems that my angel would like me to try something else... so let's do it!

I have hypothesized that the Isis and Osiris myth is the original mystery teaching, and that most (all?) of the other ancient mystery schools of which we are aware are either degenerations or imitations of it.

This is an obviously (and deliberately) grandiose claim which is quite literally unproveable, since any evidence we possess for or against it is scanty, existing as it does in the twilight realm of early recorded history, where records exist but are fragmented and sparse. However, it is at least plausible, for a few reasons:

• First, the earliest references we have to the myth are from the enigmatic Pyramid Texts, the earliest of which date to the fifth dynasty. We don't really know when this was, but even in the worst case (c. 2400 BC) would give us centuries before any foreign myths we have evidence for, for example the Inana and Dumuzid myth (Sumer, c. 2100 BC), the Gilgamesh and Enkidu myth (Sumer, c. 2100 BC), the Theseus and the Minotaur myth (Crete, c. mid-1000s BC?), and the Attis and Cybele myth (Asia Minor, c. 1250 BC).

• Second, foreign sources readily acknowledge their debt to Egypt. (I think, here, of Herodotus' Histories, Plato's Timaeus, and Pseudo-Lucian's On the Syrian Goddess.)

• Third, while it is foolish to assume Egypt was unified under a single theology at all, let alone for its entire millennia-long history, the Isis and Osiris myth demonstrates a remarkable durability (attestations exist over the span of millennia) and a remarkable degree of influence and popularity (exoteric celebrations of the myth persisted all over Egypt and even outside it, and it is attested more widely, and in a wider range of styles, than all other myths).

• Fourth, the myth seems to have penetrated very far afield at a very early time. Many Greek myths, for example, are obvious degeneracies of different parts of the Isis and Osiris myth mapped onto local deities, and date as far back as Hesiod, the very beginning of Greek mythography.

Because of all this, it seems to me that the Isis and Osiris myth is foundational to Western thought. Consider that modern materialism is a degeneration of Christianity; Christianity is a repurposing of Greek philosophy; Greek philosophy is a fusion of Mesopotamian and Egyptian mystery teachings (through various intermediaries); and, of course, the Mesopotamian mystery teachings themselves are a reimagining of those of Egypt. It is difficult not to see Hesiod's Ages of Man in all this: we were once much wiser, but we get more stupid and sickly as time goes on, and in another couple thousand years, it seems a wonder that we will be able to survive at all.

Nonetheless, we live in the age we do by the hand of Providence, and we are here to learn the lessons appropriate to our age. (At any rate, we've already survived a couple thousand years longer than Hesiod expected us to!) As Matsuo Basho tells us,

古人の跡を求めず、
古人の求めたるの所を求めよ。

Seek not the paths of the ancients—
Seek that which the ancients sought.

We cannot recover the ancient wisdom and would not be able to understand it even if we did; but this is irrelevant: we develop and grow by seeking, not by understanding. The seeking is enough: Heaven watches over Her own.

With all this in mind, I am going to attempt a deep dive into the Isis and Osiris myth. (I've read it before, of course, but have not spent much energy contemplating it.) Such a deep dive is necessarily fraught: our Egyptian sources for the myth are cryptic and fragmentary (it was a secret teaching reserved for the elite, after all), and our Greek sources are quite late and similarly fragmentary: Herodotus keeps mum in keeping with his oaths (as was an initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries, and considered the Isaic mysteries to be "close enough" that speaking of them would be impious) and Diodorus Siculus jumps around like a grasshopper, interspersing parts of the myth with Egyptian history and unrelated anecdotes, and so his recording is both fragmentary and confused. The only comprehensive source we have for the myth is Plutarch, and while he was among the greatest sages of his time, he was not an initiate of the Isaic mysteries (or he would not have wrote about them), he was a Platonist and tended to read Plato into everything, he omits details from the myth that he perceives as superfluous, and he was writing at least two-and-a-half millennia after the fact. I will be following his version of the myth, but no matter what, we will be required to fill in gaps, ourselves.

What is worse, I myself am no interpreter of mysteries: I am a dummy compared to Plutarch, to say nothing of the Egyptian sages, and am—to my torment—befitting of the sorry age in which I live. So while I will attempt to grapple with the myth, be you certain that my interpretations are those of the Peristyle: I cannot, at present, hope to penetrate into the Naos. You will not find the True Ancient Wisdom here, only conjecture. I can barely read even basic Greek, and I have not studied Ancient Egypt in any depth: my only qualification is that peculiar badge, the love of Divinity, which renders one unfit to live among men. I can only hope that by seeking I may eventually attain, and that my attempts to explore the ancient wisdom may please those Divinities which I love.

We may well inquire, then, why the ancients forsook these doctrines and made use of myths. There is this first benefit from myths, that we have to search and do not have our minds idle.

(Sallustius on the Gods and the World III, as translated by Gilbert Murray.)

[Hermes, the Kosmic Thought,] beheld the universe of things, and having seen, he understood, and having understood, he had the power to manifest and to reveal. That which he thought, he wrote; that which he wrote, he in great part concealed, wisely silent and speaking by turns, so that while the world should last, these things might be sought.

(Kore Kosmou ["The Daughter of the Cosmos," that is, "On the Soul"] I, as quoted by Stobaeus I xlix §44, and as translated by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland.)

A koan is simply the time and place where Truth is manifest. From the fundamental point of view, there is no time or place where Truth is not revealed: every place, every day, every event, every thought, every deed, and every person is a koan. In that sense, koans are neither obscure nor enigmatic. However, a koan is more commonly understood as a tool for teaching true insight.

(Eido T. Shimano, Zen Koans.)

The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master's room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.

Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

"Wait a while," said Mokurai. "You are too young."

But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.

In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

"You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together," said Mokurai. "Now show me the sound of one hand."

Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From his window he could hear the music of the geishas. "Ah, I have it!" he proclaimed.

The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

"No, no," said Mokurai. "That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all."

Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. "What can the sound of one hand be?" He happened to hear some water dripping. "I have it," imagined Toyo.

When he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water.

"What is that?" asked Mokurai. "That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again."

In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.

He heard the cry of an owl. This also was refused.

The sound of one hand was not the locusts.

For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.

At last little Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. "I could collect no more," he explained later, "so I reached the soundless sound."

Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.

(Nyogen Senzaki, 101 Zen Stories XXI "Sound of One Hand.")

Remember, the trying to understand is more important than the understanding.

(My angel.)

Myths are not history. To treat the gods as murderers and adulterers and child-eaters and other silly nonsense is foolish and impious.

Neither are myths mere allegories. To assign Apollo the name of inspiration and Aphrodite the name of what you feel when you see a pretty girl is idolatrous, mistaking the map for the territory.

No, the myths are koans. The purpose of them is not to understand, it is to participate; by participating, we give our minds as an offering; by giving our minds, we embody the gods; by embodying the gods, we become like them; by becoming like them...

I have this vague idea that every civilization, unless it is somehow terminated early (by war or famine or whatever), develops to the same level of sophistication in understanding the universe before it fails. For example, the Egyptians somehow knew how to measure the distances to stars (the Nabta Playa complex allegedly does so to great accuracy) and, of course, were capable of engineering feats that leave us in awe even today; while Greeks knew about such things as special relativity and chaos theory (Plotinus discusses both); but neither got much further than that before they failed. Obviously, I suspect our fate will be similar.

But what is especially interesting to me is that each civilization uses different tools to do so, and it seems that all the other things we think of as central to that culture stem from this. The Egyptians may have well used magic, the Greeks used dialectic, and we use science. By this I assume that the Egyptians had a Saturnine angel; the Greeks, a Solar angel; and we, of course, have a Mercurial angel. But consider the ramifications: the Egyptians took a very long time to get there, but had tremendous cultural longevity (and their solid-as-a-rock monuments persist even today); the Greeks got there very efficiently, needing little resources to do it (and produced remarkable beauty which is still imitated today); we have produced little cultural value of our own, rather favoring to steal from others (and have needed a massive population, massive industrial base, and massive communication and travel in order to accomplish what we have).

Thus, I do not think that the destruction of the environment and the ransacking of the world's peoples is an accident: it is the necessary byproduct of the designs of the Western cultural angel. One must suppose that there is a good (and a Good) reason for it, and trust in Providence.

For dæmons do not assist all indifferently, but as when men swim at sea, those standing on the shore merely view in silence the swimmers who are still far out distant from land, whereas they help with hand and voice alike such as have come near, and running along and wading in beside them bring them safely in, such too, my friends, is the way of dæmons: as long as we are head over ears in the welter of worldly affairs and are changing body after body, like conveyances, they allow us to fight our way out and persevere unaided, as we endeavor by our own prowess to come through safe and reach a haven; but when in the course of countless births a soul has stoutly and resolutely sustained a long series of struggles, and as her cycle draws to a close, she approaches the upper world, bathed in sweat, in imminent peril and straining every nerve to reach the shore,​ God holds it no sin for her dæmon to go to the rescue, but lets whoever will lend aid. One dæmon is eager to deliver by his exhortations one soul, another another, and the soul on her part, having drawn close, can hear, and is thus saved; but if she pays no heed, she is forsaken by her dæmon and comes to no happy end.

(Plutarch on the Dæmon of Socrates 593F–594A, as translated by Phillip H. De Lacy and Benedict Einarson)

Double are the daemons in man—and double are their
tribes: they wander over the ever-flourishing earth
to stand with human beings, by Zeus' rule.
Zeus indeed is the giver of all things, both good and bad—
he defines too the time of life for those being born,
mingling mortal bodies with things both foul and fair.​
Those daemons—whoever should associate with them by his wisdom,
and achieve an understanding of what deeds they take delight in—
he would surpass everyone in intelligence and noble deeds,
winning noble gifts from a noble giver and fleeing from the foul.

[John Lydus, De Mensibus IV ci, as translated by Mischa Hooker. Lydus attributes this verse to "the oracle," usually assumed to the Chaldean Oracles [cf. 215 in Majercik], but this is doubtful as the Chaldean Oracles are stylistically different; never call Zeus bad; and further call good dæmons, "angels," and bad dæmons, "dæmons."]

Thee, mighty-ruling, Dæmon dread, I call,
Mild Jove, life-giving, and the source of all:
Great Jove, much-wand'ring, terrible and strong,
To whom revenge and tortures dire belong.
Mankind from thee, in plenteous wealth abound,
When in their dwellings joyful thou art found;
Or pass thro' life afflicted and distress'd,
The needful means of bliss by thee supprest.
'Tis thine alone endu'd with boundless might,
To keep the keys of sorrow and delight.
O holy, blessed father, hear my pray'r,
Disperse the seeds of life-consuming care;
With fav'ring mind the sacred rites attend,
And grant my days a glorious, blessed end.

(Orphic Hymn LXXII "To the Dæmon," as translated by Thomas Taylor.)

We sing of holy daimons, who are near to us,
to them and also to the other deathless ones,
for daimons serve quite well the gods who're more divine,
bestow the many benefits on our behalf,
disperse them all, which they receive from Zeus himself,
and which descend to us through all the other gods.
And thus they save us, with some purifying us,
and others elevating or protecting us,
and easily straightening our minds. And so, be kind.

(Plethon, Twelfth Monthly Hymn, to the Daimons, as translated by John Opsopaus.)