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Recuyle – Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

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Recuyle Of The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

The link below is to a pdf file of my Recuyle Of The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos. This compilation, of 50 pages, is of three published essays and one hitherto unpublished essay of mine concerning the philosophy of πάθει μάθος and will hopefully serve as a useful work of reference, containing as it does (in my view) all that is required for an understanding of, and all that is relevant to, that philosophy, and perhaps therefore may be my magnum opus. The essays previously published have been slightly (or in the case of Society, Politics, Social Reform, and Pathei-Mathos substantially) revised for inclusion here, with some typos corrected.

Recuyle Of The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos
(pdf 311 kB)

Contents:

Forward
Part One: The Way of Pathei-Mathos – A Philosophical Compendium
Part Two: Some Personal Musings On Empathy
Part Three: Enantiodromia and The Reformation of The Individual
Part Four: Society, Politics, Social Reform, and Pathei-Mathos
Footnotes
Appendix I – A Glossary of Terms
Appendix II – The Change of Enantiodromia
Appendix III – The Principle of Δίκα

David Myatt
17th May 2012 ce

Posted by DWM
Filed in David Myatt, Pathei Mathos, Philosophy of The Numinous Way, The Numinous Way

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The Way of Pathei-Mathos

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This text is available as a pdf document – c.157kB – here.

The Way of Pathei-Mathos

The Way of Pathei-Mathos
A Philosophical Compendiary

Contents

Preface
I – Pathei-Mathos as Authority and Way
II – The Nature and Knowledge of Empathy
III – The Nature of Being and of Beings
IV – An Appreciation of The Numinous
Conclusion
Appendix I – Some Explanations, Terms, and Definitions
Appendix II – The Change of Enantiodromia
Appendix III – The Principle of Δίκα

Preface

This work is a brief introduction to the philosophy, the Way, of πάθει μάθος (pathei-mathos). A substantial portion of the text here is new, although some has been taken from or summarizes or is a rewrite of various parts of some other writings of mine from the past two years, with the text being so arranged as to be – I hope – conducive to a reasoned understanding of this philosophy and its ethos. Thus this work may serve as a guide to distinguish my now completed philosophy of πάθει μάθος from those early (and sometimes even later) parts of The Numinous Way which I have since had occasion to either reject or substantially revise.

The philosophy of pathei-mathos as presented here therefore represents both the essence and the substance of what I have retained after seven or so years of developing The Numinous Way. Given how substantially I have developed and refined The Numinous Way, and given how much has upon reflexion been discarded, perhaps the use of this new term philosophy of πάθει μάθος – in preference to The Numinous Way – is warranted or would be useful in order to avoid confusion with all the rejected, discarded and unrevised material of that ‘numinous way’.

This new philosophy of πάθει μάθος, however, is not a conventional, an academic, one where a person intellectually posits or constructs a coherent theory – involving ontology, epistemology, ethics, and so on – often as a result of an extensive dispassionate study, review, or a criticism of the philosophies or views, past and present, advanced by other individuals involved in the pursuit of philosophy as an academic discipline or otherwise. Instead, the philosophy of pathei-mathos is the result of of my own pathei-mathos, my own learning from diverse – sometimes outré, sometimes radical and often practical – ways of life and experiences over some four decades; of my subsequent reasoned analysis, over a period of several years, of those ways and those experiences; of certain personal intuitions, spread over several decades, regarding the numinous; of an interior process of personal and moral reflexion, lasting several years and deriving from a personal tragedy; and of my life-long study and appreciation of Hellenic culture, an appreciation that led me to translate works by Sappho, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Homer, and involved me in a detailed consideration of the weltanschauung of individuals such as Heraclitus (insofar as such weltanschauungen are known from recorded sayings and surviving books).

Given this appreciation, and as the name suggests, the philosophy of πάθει μάθος has certain connexions to Hellenic culture and I tend therefore to use certain Greek words in order to try and elucidate my meaning and/or to express certain philosophical principles regarded as important in – and for an understanding of – this philosophy; a usage of words which I have endeavoured to explain as and where necessary, sometimes by quoting passages from Hellenic literature or other works and by providing translations of such passages. For it would be correct to assume that the ethos of this philosophy is somewhat indebted to and yet – and importantly – is also a development of the ethos of Hellenic culture; an indebtedness obvious in notions such as δίκη, πάθει μάθος, avoidance of ὕβρις, and references to Heraclitus, Aeschylus, and others, and a development manifest in notions such as empathy and the importance attached to the virtue of compassion.

In addition, and possibly somewhat unconventionally since in accord with the Hellenic etymology of the word and the Homeric sense of φίλος ^[a] I view a philosopher as someone who is a friend of – whose companion is, who seeks to find, to acquire, to follow, to befriend – σοφόν. Thus in this sense, a philosopher is someone seeking to acquire a certain skill (such as the learning/reasoning that is λόγος) and discover a particular knowledge, such as a knowledge regarding Being and beings, rerum divinarum et humanarum; a knowledge acquired or found by means of both using λόγος and from life itself via practical experience, practical learning; a dual sense evident from the meaning and usage of σοφός.

Thus my personal understanding of philosophy is that it is the result of the activity and the life of a philosopher; more correctly perhaps, it is both the written or the recorded or transmitted results of the lucubrations that such way of life (that such a following, such a seeking, of knowledge and wisdom) engenders, and of what the living of such a life (that such befriending of σοφόν) brings-into-being and/or reveals. And it is in this sense that I consider my way of πάθει μάθος a philosophy.

As for my prior ways of life, study, and experiences – the genesis of this particular philosophy – they are mostly now in the public domain, and if anyone is interested in them (for whatever reason) then they might profitably peruse some of my own writings concerning them. Writings such as: (i) Myngath, and (ii) The Ethos of Extremism; and compilations such as: (i) De Novo Caelo et Nova Terra; (ii) The Culture of Arête; (iii) Meditations on Extremism, and (iv) Remembering Wyrd.

All translations from Ancient Greek in this work are mine, and I have, at the suggestion of a friend, added an appendix giving some brief explanations and definitions of some of the Greek and English terms used, some of which explanations and definitions are taken either from the body of the text or from footnotes and/or which may expand upon the body of the text or footnotes.

David Myatt
24^th April 2012 ce

[a] For example, Odyssey, Book I, v.301-302

καὶ σύ, φίλος, μάλα γάρ σ᾽ ὁρόω καλόν τε μέγαν τε,
ἄλκιμος ἔσσ᾽, ἵνα τίς σε καὶ ὀψιγόνων ἐὺ εἴπῃ.

Thus should you, my friend – who I see are strong and fully-grown -
Be as brave, so that those born after you will speak well of you.

Pathei-Mathos as Authority and Way

The Greek term πάθει μάθος derives from The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (written c. 458 BCE), and can be interpreted, or translated, as meaning learning from adversary, or wisdom arises from (personal) suffering; or personal experience is the genesis of true learning.

However, this expression should be understood in context [1], for what Aeschylus writes is that the Immortal, Zeus, guiding mortals to reason, has provided we mortals with a new law, which law replaces previous ones, and which new law – this new guidance laid down for mortals – is pathei-mathos.

Thus, for we human beings, pathei-mathos possesses a numinous, a living, authority [2] – that is, the wisdom, the understanding, that arises from one’s own personal experience, from formative experiences that involve some hardship, some grief, some personal suffering, is often or could be more valuable to us (more alive, more meaningful) than any doctrine, than any religious faith, than any words one might hear from someone else or read in some book.

In many ways, this Aeschylean view is an enlightened – a very human – one, and is somewhat in contrast to the faith and revelation-centred view of religions such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. In the former, it is the personal experience of learning from, and dealing with, personal suffering and adversity, that is paramount and which possesses authority and ‘meaning’. In the latter, it is faith that some written or transmitted work or works is or are a sacred revelation from the supreme deity one believes in which is paramount, which possess meaning and authority, often combined with a belief that this supreme deity has appointed or authorized some mortal being or beings, or some Institution, as their earthly representative(s), and which Institution and/or representative(s) therefore are believed to possess or are accepted as possessing authority or are regarded as authoritative.

Thus, the Aeschylean view is that learning, and hence wisdom, often or perhaps mostly arises from within us, by virtue of that which afflicts us (and which afflictions could well be understood as from the gods/Nature or from some supra-personal source) and from our own, direct, personal, practical, experience. In contrast, the conventional religious view is that wisdom can be found in some book (especially in some religious text), or be learnt from someone considered to be an authority, or who has been appointed as some authority by some Institution, religious or otherwise.

The essential difference between these two ways is therefore that pathei-mathos is the way of direct learning from personal experience, while the religious way is often or mostly the way of secondary or tertiary learning, from others; of accepting or believing what is written by or taught by someone else or laid down in some dogma, some creed, some book, or by some external authority, such as an Institution.
For The Way of Pathei-Mathos, it is the personal learning that pathei-mathos provides or can provide, combined with – balanced by – the insight, the knowing, that empathy provides, which are considered as possessing authority, and which can aid us to discover wisdom.

The Way of Pathei-Mathos

The fundamental axioms of The Way of Pathei-Mathos are:

1) That human beings possess a mostly latent perceptive faculty, the faculty of empathy – ἐμπάθεια – which when used, or when developed and used, can provide us with a particular type of knowing, a particular type of knowledge, and especially a certain knowledge concerning the φύσις (the physis, the nature or character) of human beings and other living beings.

2) This type of knowing, this perception, is different from and supplementary to that acquired by means of the Aristotelian essentials of conventional philosophy and experimental science [3], and thus enables us to better understand Phainómenon, ourselves, and other living beings.

3) That because of or following πάθει μάθος there is or there can be a change in, a development of, the nature, the character – the φύσις – of the person because of that revealing and that appreciation (or re-appreciation) of the numinous whose genesis is this πάθει μάθος, and which appreciation of the numinous includes an awareness of why ὕβρις is an error (often the error) of unbalance, of disrespect or ignorance (of the numinous), of a going beyond the due limits, and which ὕβρις itself is the genesis both of the τύραννος [4] and of the modern error of extremism. For the tyrannos and the modern extremist (and their extremisms) embody and give rise to and perpetuate ἔρις [5] and thus are a cause of, or contribute to and aid, suffering.

4) This change, this development of the individual, is or can be the result of enantiodromia [6] and reveals the nature of, and restores in individuals, the natural balance necessary for ψυχή [7] to flourish – which natural balance is δίκη as Δίκα [8] and which restoration of balance within the individual results in ἁρμονίη [9], manifest as ἁρμονίη (harmony) is in the cultivation, in the individual, of wu-wei [10] and σωφρονεῖν (a fair and balanced personal, individual, judgement) [11].

5) The development and use of empathy, the cultivation of wu-wei and σωφρονεῖν, are thus a means, a way, whereby individuals can cease to cause suffering or cease to contribute to, or cease to aid, suffering.

6) The reason as to why an individual might so seek to avoid causing suffering is the reason, the knowledge – the appreciation of the numinous – that empathy and πάθει μάθος provide.

7) This appreciation of the numinous inclines or can incline an individual to living in a certain way and which way of life naturally inclines the individual toward developing, in a natural way – sans any methodology, praxis, theory, dogma, or faith – certain attributes of character, and which attributes of character include compassion, self-restraint, fairness, and a reasoned, a personal, judgement.

II
The Nature and Knowledge of Empathy

Empathy is, as an intuitive understanding, what was, can be, and often is, learned or developed by πάθει μάθος. That is, from and by a direct, personal, learning from experience and suffering. An understanding manifest in our awareness of the numinous and thus in the distinction we have made, we make, or we are capable of making, between the sacred and the profane; the distinction made, for example in the past, between θεοί and δαιμόνων and mortals, and thus manifest in that understanding of ὕβρις and δίκη which can be obtained from the works of Sophocles, and Aeschylus [12], and from an understanding of Φύσις evident in some of the sayings attributed to Heraclitus [13].

Understood by reference to such classical illustrations, empathy is thus what naturally predisposed us to appreciate δίκη and be aware, respectful of, the goddess, Δίκην [14], and thus avoid retribution for committing the error of ὕβρις, for disrupting the natural balance necessary for individual and communal well-being.

That is, a certain empathy is, and has been, the natural basis for a tradition which informs us, and reminds us – through Art, literature, myths, legends, the accumulated πάθει μάθος of individuals, and often through a religious-type awareness – of the need for a balance, for ἁρμονίη, achieved by not going beyond the numinous limits.

As a used and a developed faculty, the perception that empathy provides is of undivided ψυχή and of the emanations of ψυχή, of our place in the Cosmic Perspective: of how we are a connexion to other life; of how we are but one mortal fallible emanation of Life; of how we affect or can affect the well-being – the very being, ψυχή – of other mortals and other life; and how other mortals and other living beings interact with us and can affect us, in a good or a harmful way.

Empathy thus involves a translocation of ourselves and thus a knowing-of another living-being as that living-being is, without presumptions and sans all ideations, all projections. In a simple way, empathy involves a numinous sympathy with another living-being; a becoming – for a causal moment or moments – of that other-being, so that we know, can feel, can understand, the suffering or the joy of that living-being. In such moments, there is no distinction made between them and us – there is only the flow of life; only the presencing and the ultimate unity of Life itself.

This knowing-of another living-being and this knowledge of the Cosmic Perspective – this empathic awareness of Life – inclines us toward compassion; toward the human virtue of having συμπάθεια (sympatheia, benignity) with and toward other living beings. For such an awareness involves being sensitive to, respectful of, other Life, and not arrogantly, in a hubriatic manner, imposing ourselves or trying to impose ourselves on Life and its emanations. That is, there is the cultivation of the natural balance that is wu-wei because of our awareness of how other Life, other living-beings, can suffer, and how some-things, some actions, are unwise because they do or can cause suffering or have caused suffering.

In effect, empathy uncovers or can uncover the nature of our being and the nature of Being itself.

III
The Nature of Being and of Beings

Empathy uncovers the a-causal nature of Being; of how, as Heraclitus expressed it in fragment 53, beings have their genesis,

Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι, πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς μὲν δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους.

Polemos our genesis, governing us all to bring forth some gods, some mortal beings with some unfettered yet others kept bound. [15]

and how

πάντα δὲ γίνεσθαι καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐναντιοδρομίας ἡρμόσθαι τὰ ὄντα

All by genesis is appropriately apportioned [separated into portions] with beings bound together again by enantiodromia [16]

and why σωφρονεῖν is important:

σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη, καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαίοντας

Most excellent is balanced reasoning, for that skill can tell inner character from outer. [17]

Empathy also reveals why the assumption that abstracted, ideated, opposites apply to or should apply to living beings – and that they thus can supply us with knowledge and understanding of living being – disrupts the natural balance, resulting in a loss of ἁρμονίη and συμπάθεια and is therefore a manifestation of the error of ὕβρις.

The Acausal Nature of Being

The empathic perception of an undivided ψυχή and of living beings as emanations of ψυχή, and the knowledge of ourselves and one affective and effecting fallible mortal connexion to other life that such a perception provides, leads to an understanding of Being, of ψυχή, as a-causal: as beyond the linearity of a simple and direct cause-and-effect and beyond the supposition that we are separated beings. This perception – and this knowing of the acausal nature of Being deriving from it – is numinous; that is, of how beings are part of Being and of how they come-into-being, are affected and affecting, and so Change and are Change: of how Life flows and ebbs and continues undivided, unseparated, a-temporal, and is only temporarily manifest in particular beings only erroneously perceived by us as discrete entities, as separated beings.

As Heraclitus mentioned as recorded in fragment 52:

αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων πεσσεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη

For Aeon, we are a game, pieces moved on some board: since, in this world of ours, we are but children.

For the perception and the knowing of causality in respect of living beings is that of the-separation-of-otherness; a notion of causal and linear separation, of past-present-future, of independent beings that gives rise to two things. (1) Of how we human consider we are different from or similar to other individual human beings. A difference or a similarity deriving from posited, manufactured, ideated, categories to which we assign others and ourselves and from which we often or mostly derive our identity, our self-assurance, and our belief about their and our φύσις, or at least what we assume is a knowledge of such things. (2) Of how such separately existing human beings are not subject to – or can and should make themselves not subject to or can overcome or ignore – any external supra-personal non-physical (non-temporal) force or forces, and thus of how these separated human beings have or can acquire the ability, the skill, to ‘determine their own destiny/fate/life’ by some means if the right method, or some methodology, or some tool – such as some idea or theory – can be found or developed, or if they develope their physical prowess/intelligence/cunning or acquire sufficient wealth/power/influence/followers.

Such a purely causal perception and causal understanding of living beings – lacking as it does an awareness of, an appreciation and a feeling for the numinous, or wilfully ignoring the numinous – is the genesis of ὕβρις and can thus bring-into-being the τύραννος [4].
An example of this reliance on causal perception and causal understanding is Oedipus, as described by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus. In his singular desire to find the killer of Laius, Oedipus oversteps the due limits, and upsets the natural balance both within, and external to, himself. He is blinded by mere causality (a linear thinking) and subsumed by personal feelings – by his overwhelming desire for a simple cause-and-effect solution to the plague and his prideful belief that he, a mortal, a strong man, and master of the riddle of the Sphinx, can find or derive a solution. What results is tragedy, suffering, for himself and for others.

ὦ πάτρας Θήβης ἔνοικοι, λεύσσετ᾽, Οἰδίπους ὅδε,
ὃς τὰ κλείν᾽ αἰνίγματ᾽ ᾔδει καὶ κράτιστος ἦν ἀνήρ,
οὗ τίς οὐ ζήλῳ πολιτῶν ἦν τύχαις ἐπιβλέπων,
εἰς ὅσον κλύδωνα δεινῆς συμφορᾶς ἐλήλυθεν.
ὥστε θνητὸν ὄντα κείνην τὴν τελευταίαν ἰδεῖν
ἡμέραν ἐπισκοποῦντα μηδέν᾽ ὀλβίζειν, πρὶν ἂν
τέρμα τοῦ βίου περάσῃ μηδὲν ἀλγεινὸν παθών.

You natives of Thebes: Observe – here is Oedipus,
He who understood that famous enigma and was a strong man:
What clansman did not behold that fortune without envy?
But what a tide of problems have come over him!
Therefore, look toward that ending which is for us mortals,
To observe that particular day – calling no one lucky until,
Without the pain of injury, they are conveyed beyond life’s ending.

(Oedipus Tyrannus, vv. 1524-1530)

Another example is Creon, as described by Sophocles in his Antigone. Creon’s pride and stubbornness, and his rigid adherence to his own, causal (temporal), mortal, edict – which overturns an ancestral custom established and maintained to ‘please the gods’ and implement a natural edict of the gods designed to give and maintain balance, harmony, among the community – leads to tragedy, to suffering.

The same thing occurred to Odysseus, who for all his prowess and mortal cunning could not contrive to return to his homeland as he wished nor save his friends, and

kπολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ:
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,
νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο
ἤσθιον: αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.

…whose vigour, at sea, was weakened by many afflictions
As he strove to win life for himself and return his comrades to their homes.
But not even he, for all this yearning, could save those comrades
For they were destroyed by their own immature foolishness
Having devoured the cattle of Helios, that son of Hyperion,
Who plucked from them the day of their returning.

(Homer, Odyssey, vv.3-9)

Such emphasis by mortals on causality, arising from a lack of the acausal, the numinous, perspective that empathy and πάθει μάθος provide, is in effect an ignoring of, a wilful defiance of, or a forgetfulness of, the natural balance, of our own nature, and of the gods. Expressed un-theistically, it is a lack of, or a covering-up of, or an ignorance of, the the nature of Being and of beings, of who and why we are, and why wu-wei is a wise way to live.

Our nature – which empathy and πάθει μάθος can reveal – is that of a mortal being veering between σωφρονεῖν (thoughtful reasoning, and thus fairness) and ὕβρις.

As Sophocles expressed it:

πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει…

σοφόν τι τὸ μηχανόεν τέχνας ὑπὲρ ἐλπίδ᾽ ἔχων
τοτὲ μὲν κακόν, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἐσθλὸν ἕρπει

There exists much that is strange, yet nothing
Has more strangeness than a human being…
Beyond his own hopes, his cunning
In inventive arts – he who arrives
Now with dishonour, then with chivalry

Antigone, v.334, vv.365-366

Yet as empathy and πάθει μάθος also reveal, our nature is such that we also have hope and a choice. We can choose to be fair, rational, beings who appreciate and cultivate σωφρονεῖν; who appreciate the numinous and ἁρμονίη and who understand ὕβρις for the error, the misfortune, the unbalance, it is. Or we can, like Oedipus, Creon, Aegisthus, and the comrades of Odysseus, foolishly, recklessly, veer toward and embrace ἔρις and ὕβρις.

We can appreciate the numinous – be wary of Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες. We can kindle and rekindle the ‘fire of reason’, and appreciate that when ‘more is obtained than is necessary it is not kept’. Or we can take short-cuts, foolishly overladen ourselves, and in our recklessness believe we are immune to injury:

τὸν δ᾽ ἄνευ λύρας ὅμως ὑμνῳδεῖ
θρῆνον Ἐρινύος αὐτοδίδακτος ἔσωθεν
θυμός, οὐ τὸ πᾶν ἔχων
ἐλπίδος φίλον θράσος.
σπλάγχνα δ᾽ οὔτοι ματᾴ-
ζει πρὸς ἐνδίκοις φρεσὶν
τελεσφόροις δίναις κυκώμενον κέαρ.
εὔχομαι δ᾽ ἐξ ἐμᾶς
ἐλπίδος ψύθη πεσεῖν
ἐς τὸ μὴ τελεσφόρον.

μάλα γέ τοι τὸ μεγάλας ὑγιείας
ἀκόρεστον τέρμα: νόσος γάρ
γείτων ὁμότοιχος ἐρείδει.
καὶ πότμος εὐθυπορῶν
ἀνδρὸς ἔπαισεν ἄφαντον ἕρμα.
καὶ πρὸ μέν τι χρημάτων
κτησίων ὄκνος βαλὼν
σφενδόνας ἀπ᾽ εὐμέτρου,
οὐκ ἔδυ πρόπας δόμος
πημονᾶς γέμων ἄγαν,
οὐδ᾽ ἐπόντισε σκάφος.
πολλά τοι δόσις ἐκ Διὸς ἀμφιλα-
φής τε καὶ ἐξ ἀλόκων ἐπετειᾶν
νῆστιν ὤλεσεν νόσον.

τὸ δ᾽ ἐπὶ γᾶν πεσὸν ἅπαξ θανάσιμον
πρόπαρ ἀνδρὸς μέλαν αἷμα τίς ἂν
πάλιν ἀγκαλέσαιτ᾽ ἐπαείδων;
οὐδὲ τὸν ὀρθοδαῆ
τῶν φθιμένων ἀνάγειν
Ζεὺς ἀπέπαυσεν ἐπ᾽ εὐλαβείᾳ;
εἰ δὲ μὴ τεταγμένα
μοῖρα μοῖραν ἐκ θεῶν
εἶργε μὴ πλέον φέρειν,
προφθάσασα καρδία
γλῶσσαν ἂν τάδ᾽ ἐξέχει.
νῦν δ᾽ ὑπὸ σκότῳ βρέμει
θυμαλγής τε καὶ οὐδὲν ἐπελπομέν-
α ποτὲ καίριον ἐκτολυπεύσειν
ζωπυρουμένας φρενός.

And so, although I have no lyre, I sing:
For there is a desire, within me – a self-taught hymn
For one of those Furies,
With nothing at all to bring me
That cherished confidence – hope.
And my stomach is by no means idle -
In fairness, it is from achieving a judgement
That the beat of my heart continues to change.
And so there is this supplication of mine:
For this defeat of my hope to be false
So that, that thing cannot be achieved.
In truth, that frequently unsatisfied goddess, Health,
Has a limit – for Sickness, her neighbour,
Leans against their shared fence;
And it is the fate of the mortal who takes the short-cut
To strike the unseen reef.
And yet if – of those possessions previously acquired
A fitting amount is, through caution, cast forth by a sling,
Then the whole construction will not go under -
Injuriously over-loaded as it was -
Nor will its hull be filled, by the sea.
Often, the gifts from Zeus are abundant
And there is, then, from the yearly ploughing,
A death for famine’s sickness.

But if once upon the earth there falls from
A mortal that death-making black blood -
What incantation can return it to his arms?
Not even he who was correctly-taught
How to bring back those who had died
Was allowed by Zeus to be without injury.
Were it not that Fate was ordained
By the gods to make it fated
That when more is obtained it is not kept,
My heart would have been first
To let my tongue pour forth these things.

But now, in darkness, it murmurs,
Painfully-desiring, and having no hope of when
There will be an opportunity to bring this to an end,
Rekindling the fire of reason.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon, vv.990-1033

The Error of The-Separation-of-Otherness

The essence of the faculty of empathy is συμπάθεια with other living beings and which συμπάθεια involves a translocation of ourselves for a duration or durations of causal moments. There is thus a perception of the acausal, the numinous, reality underlying the causal division of beings, existents, into separate, causal-separated, objects and the subject-object relationship which is or has been assumed by means of the process of causal ideation to exist between such causally-separate beings. That is, and for instance, the implied or assumed causal separateness of living beings – the-separation-of-otherness – is causal appearance and not an expression of the true nature of Being and beings.

The-separation-of-otherness obscures and disrupts our relation to ψυχή and thus obscures the nature of our being and the nature of Being itself, and amounts to ὕβρις. For, in place of an understanding, a knowing, and thus an appreciation and acceptance of what is numinous – and thus of the natural balance and of what/whom we should respect - the-separation-of-otherness results in the positing of abstract categories/idealised forms to which we, as living beings, are assigned and which categories and forms are regarded as what we should aspire to and/or compare ourselves to and what we are judged by or judge ourselves by.

In classical terms, the natural balance and those whom we should respect – manifest in ψυχή and θεοί and Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες and δαιμόνων and in those sacred places guarded or watched over by δαιμόνων – are arrogantly replaced by human manufactured, and fallible, ideations and which ideations do not in any way re-present the nature, the φύσις, of our being, the φύσις of other living beings, and φύσις of Being, and which φύσις is one of the living connexions, the numinosity, of ψυχή and thus of the Cosmic Perspective, a nature manifest, for we mortals, in an appreciation of the numinous and thus in living in a certain way because we understand the nature, the importance, of δίκη, of fairness, of not being excessive.

The result of such ὕβρις - of the-separation-of-otherness and of the arrogance assigning living beings to and judging them by lifeless abstractions, ideations; of neglecting θεοί and Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες and δαιμόνων – is ἔρις: strife, discord, disruption, conflict, suffering, misfortune, and a loss of ψυχή and ἁρμονίη.

As Aeschylus mentioned, over two thousand years ago:

ἔστω δ᾽ ἀπή-
μαντον, ὥστ᾽ ἀπαρκεῖν
εὖ πραπίδων λαχόντα.
οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἔπαλξις
πλούτου πρὸς κόρον ἀνδρὶ
λακτίσαντι μέγαν Δίκας
βωμὸν εἰς ἀφάνειαν.

βιᾶται δ᾽ ἁ τάλαινα πειθώ,
προβούλου παῖς ἄφερτος ἄτας.
ἄκος δὲ πᾶν μάταιον. οὐκ ἐκρύφθη,
πρέπει δέ, φῶς αἰνολαμπές, σίνος…

λιτᾶν δ᾽ ἀκούει μὲν οὔτις θεῶν:
τὸν δ᾽ ἐπίστροφον τῶν
φῶτ᾽ ἄδικον καθαιρεῖ

For unharmed is the one
Who rightly reasons that what is sufficient
Is what is allotted to him.
For there is no protection
In riches for the man of excess
Who stamps down the great altar of the goddess, Judgement,
In order to hide it from view.

But vigorously endures Temptation -
That already-decided daughter of unbearable Misfortune.
And all remedies are in vain.
Not concealed, but conspicuous -
A harsh shining light -
Is the injury…

But not one of the gods hears the supplications:
Instead, they take down those persons
Who, lacking fairness, turn their attentions to such things.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon. vv.379-389, vv. 396-402

IV
An Appreciation of The Numinous

Empathy by its very nature – by its relocation, translocation, of ourselves into, and συμπάθεια with, the living other – naturally inclines us toward compassion, for to intentionally harm the living other is to feel, to know, that harm. Such harming might also upset, unbalance, hinder, or harm, the ψυχή we share with that and with other living beings and so in some way cause, or contribute to, or result in harm, suffering, or misfortune to us and/or to others now or on some future occasion or occasions.

In effect, compassion is a means to maintain ἁρμονίη and the natural balance of Life and thus to aid or contribute to our own ἁρμονίη and well-being as well as that of others.

Empathy – like πάθει μάθος – also inclines us toward treating other human beings as we ourselves would wish to be treated; that is it inclines us toward fairness, toward self-restraint, toward being well-mannered, and toward an appreciation and understanding of innocence, with innocence being regarded as an attribute of those who, being personally unknown to us, are therefore unjudged us by and who thus are given the benefit of the doubt. For this presumption of innocence of others – until direct personal experience, and individual and empathic knowing of them, prove otherwise – is the fair, the reasoned, the numinous thing to do.

Thus morality is, for The Way of Pathei-Mathos, a result of individuals using the faculty of empathy; a consequence of the insight and the understanding (the acausal knowing) that empathy provides for individuals in the immediacy-of-the-moment. Or, expressed another way, morality resides not in some abstract theory or some moralistic schemata presented in some written text which individuals have to accept and try and conform or aspire to, but rather in personal virtues that arise or which can arise naturally through empathy, πάθει μάθος, and thus from an awareness and appreciation of the numinous. Personal virtues such as compassion and fairness, and εὐταξία, that quality of self-restraint, of a balanced, well-mannered conduct especially under adversity or duress, of which Cicero wrote:

Haec autem scientia continentur ea, quam Graeci εὐταξίαν nominant, non hanc, quam interpretamur modestiam, quo in verbo modus inest, sed illa est εὐταξία, in qua intellegitur ordinis conservatio

Those two qualities are evident in that way described by the Greeks as εὐταξίαν although what is meant by εὐταξία is not what we mean by the moderation of the moderate, but rather what we consider is restrained behaviour…

De Officiis, Liber Primus, 142

In practice, therefore, justice is not some abstract concept, some ideation, which it is believed can and should be administered by others and requiring the individual to accept, passively or willingly, some external authority. Rather, justice, like εὐταξία, like goodness, is numinous, living in the individual who – because of empathy, πάθει μάθος, awareness and appreciation of the numinous – is inclined to be fair, who is capable of restraint especially under adversity or duress; the individual of σωφρονεῖν who thus “can tell inner character from outer” and who thus has those personal qualities which can be expressed by one word: honour.

The Numinous Balance of Honour

In many ways, the personal virtue of honour, and the cultivation of wu-wei, are – together – a practical, a living, manifestation of our understanding and appreciation of the numinous; of how to live, to behave, as empathy intimates we can or should in order to avoid committing the folly, the error, of ὕβρις, in order not to cause suffering, and in order to re-present, to acquire, ἁρμονίη.

For personal honour is essentially a presencing, a grounding, of ψυχή – of Life, of our φύσις – occurring when the insight (the knowing) of a developed empathy inclines us toward a compassion that is, of necessity, balanced by σωφρονεῖν and in accord with δίκη.

This balancing of compassion – of the need not to cause suffering – by σωφρονεῖν and δίκη is perhaps most obvious on that particular occasion when it may be judged necessary to cause suffering to another human being. That is, in honourable self-defence. For it is natural – part of our reasoned, fair, just, human nature – to defend ourselves when attacked and (in the immediacy of the personal moment) to valorously, with chivalry, act in defence of someone close-by who is unfairly attacked or dishonourably threatened or is being bullied by others, and to thus employ, if our personal judgement of the circumstances deem it necessary, lethal force.

This use of force is, importantly, crucially, restricted – by the individual nature of our judgement, and by the individual nature of our authority – to such personal situations of immediate self-defence and of valorous defence of others, and cannot be extended beyond that, for to so extend it, or attempt to extend it beyond the immediacy of the personal moment of an existing physical threat, is an arrogant presumption – an act of ὕβρις – which negates the fair, the human, presumption of innocence [15] of those we do not personally know, we have no empathic knowledge of, and who present no direct, immediate, personal, threat to us or to others nearby us.

Such personal self-defence and such valorous defence of another in a personal situation are in effect a means to restore the natural balance which the unfair, the dishonourable, behaviour of others upsets. That is, such defence fairly, justly, and naturally in the immediacy of the moment corrects their error of ὕβρις resulting from their bad (their rotten) φύσις; a rotten character evident in their lack of the virtue, the skill, of σωφρονεῖν. For had they possessed that virtue, and if their character was not bad, they would not have undertaken such a dishonourable attack.

Wu-Wei and The Cultivation of Humility

The knowledge, the understanding, the intuition, the insight that is wu-wei is a knowledge, an understanding, that can be acquired from empathy, πάθει μάθος, and by a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous.

This knowledge and understanding, being of the wholeness, is that of the healthy, the interior, inward, and personal balance beyond the separation of beings – beyond πόλεμος and ὕβρις and thus beyond ἔρις; beyond the separation and thence the strife, the discord, which abstractions, ideations, encourage and indeed which they manufacture, bring-into-being. Among these ideations – and one which can often distance us from an appreciation of the numinous and thus from ἁρμονίη – is that of a measured Time of fixed durations; and one which thus has a tendency to both artificially apportion out our lives, urge us to hastily strive for some ideation, and cause us to live and/or work at an artificial, un-harmonious, pace.

Empathy, wu-wei, πάθει μάθος, and a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous, also incline us toward the cultivation of humility as a prerequisite for us not to repeat our errors of ὕβρις, or the ὕβρις of others, and which mistakes of ὕβρις – ours and/or of others – we either are personally aware of or can become aware of through the recorded πάθει μάθος of our human cultures, manifest as this transmitted knowledge and personal learning often is in literature, Art, poetry, myths, legends, and music.

For our personal πάθει μάθος makes us aware of, makes us feel, know, remember, in a very personal sense, our fallibility, our mortality, our mistakes, our errors, our wrong deeds, the suffering we have caused, the harm we have done and inflicted; how much we personally have contributed to discord, strife, sorrow. Similarly, our appreciation of the numinous, together with empathy and the cultivation of wu-wei, makes us aware of, and feel, and understand, ὕβρις and the errors of ὕβρις in others past and present.

There is then, or there develops or there can develope, a personal inclination toward σωφρονεῖν; toward being fair, toward rational deliberation, toward a lack of haste, toward a living numinously. Toward a balanced judgement, and honour, and a knowing and appreciation of the wisdom that the only effective, long-lasting, change and reform that does not cause suffering – that is not redolent of ὕβρις – is the one that changes human beings in an individual way by personal example and/or because of πάθει μάθος, and thus interiorly changes what, in them, predisposes them, or inclines them toward, doing or what urges them to do, what is dishonourable, undignified, unfair, and uncompassionate. That is what, individually, changes or rebalances bad φύσις and thus brings-into-being, or restores, good φύσις.

Conclusion – The Way of Pathei-Mathos

It is the cultivation by individuals of empathy, of wu-wei, of a reasoned judgement, combined with (i) an appreciation of the numinous and of our accumulated pathei-mathos – evident, for example, in Hellenic culture, in other cultures, and often manifest in Art, literature, music, myths, legends, poetry – and (ii) the living of a compassionate life balanced by honour, which are the whole of The Way of Pathei-Mathos.

The Way of Pathei-Mathos is thus an ethical, an interior, a personal, a non-political, a non-religious, a non-interfering, way of individual reflexion and individual change.

There is nothing else. No given, no required, praxis. No ‘secret wisdom’ or ‘secret teachings’, no enlightenment to be taught. No methodology, no theology, and no need for faith or belief. There are no theories, no goals, no dogma, no texts and no one to be revered.

Notes

[1]

Ζῆνα δέ τις προφρόνως ἐπινίκια κλάζων
τεύξεται φρενῶν τὸ πᾶν:
ὸν φρονεῖν βροτοὺς ὁδώ-
σαντα, τὸν πάθει μάθος
θέντα κυρίως ἔχειν.

If anyone, from reasoning, exclaims loudly that victory of Zeus,
Then they have acquired an understanding of all these things;
Of he who guided mortals to reason,
Who laid down that this possesses authority:
Learning from adversity.

Aeschylus: Agamemnon,174-183
[2] An awareness of the numinous is what predisposes us not to commit the error, the folly, of ὕβρις. As Sophocles wrote in Oedipus Tyrannus:

ὕβρις φυτεύει τύραννον:
ὕβρις, εἰ πολλῶν ὑπερπλησθῇ μάταν,
ἃ μὴ ‘πίκαιρα μηδὲ συμφέροντα,
ἀκρότατον εἰσαναβᾶσ᾽
αἶπος ἀπότομον ὤρουσεν εἰς ἀνάγκαν,
ἔνθ᾽ οὐ ποδὶ χρησίμῳ
χρῆται

Insolence plants the tyrant. There is insolence if by a great foolishness there is a useless over-filling which goes beyond the proper limits. It is an ascending to the steepest and utmost heights and then that hurtling toward that Destiny where the useful foot has no use… (vv.872ff)

In respect of the numinous, basically it is what manifests or can manifest or remind us of (what can reveal) the natural balance of ψυχή; a balance which ὕβρις upsets. This natural balance – our being as human beings – is or can be manifest to us in or by what is harmonious, or what reminds us of what is harmonious and beautiful. In a practical way, it is what we regard or come to appreciate as ‘sacred’ and dignified; what expresses our humanity and thus places us, as individuals, in our correct relation to ψυχή, and which relation is that we are but one mortal emanation of ψυχή.

We are reminded of this natural balance, of what is numinous – we can come to know, to experience, the numinous and thus can understand the nature of our being – by πάθει μάθος and empathy. That is, by the process of learning from personal adversity/personal suffering/personal grief and by using and developing our faculty of empathy.

An aspect of this learning is an appreciation, an awareness, of the Cosmic Perspective: of ourselves as one fallible, mortal, fragile biological, microcosmic, nexion on one planet in one Galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies; one connexion to, one emanation of, all other Life. In essence, πάθει μάθος and empathy teach us or can teach us humility, compassion, and the importance of personal love.

[3] The essentials which Aristotle enumerated are: (i) Reality (existence) exists independently of us and our consciousness, and thus independent of our senses; (ii) our limited understanding of this independent ‘external world’ depends for the most part upon our senses – that is, on what we can see, hear or touch; that is, on what we can observe or come to know via our senses; (iii) logical argument, or reason, is perhaps the most important means to knowledge and understanding of and about this ‘external world’; (iv) the cosmos (existence) is, of itself, a reasoned order subject to rational laws.

Experimental science seeks to explain the natural world – the phenomenal world – by means of direct, personal observation of it, and by making deductions, and formulating hypothesis, based on such direct observation, with the important and necessary proviso, expressed by Isaac Newton in his Principia, that

“We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearance….. for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”

[4] The sense of τύραννος is not exactly what our fairly modern term tyrant is commonly regarded as imputing. Rather, it refers to the intemperate person of excess who is so subsumed with some passion or some aim or a lust for power that they go far beyond the due, the accepted, bounds of behaviour and thus exceed the limits of or misuse whatever authority they have been entrusted with. Thus do they, by their excess, by their disrespect for the customs of their ancestors, by their lack of reasoned, well-balanced, judgement [σωφρονεῖν] offend the gods, and thus, to restore the balance, do the Ἐρινύες take revenge. For it is in the nature of the τύραννος that they forget, or they scorn, the truth, the ancient wisdom, that their lives are subject to, guided by, Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες -

τίς οὖν ἀνάγκης ἐστὶν οἰακοστρόφος.
Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες

Who then compels to steer us?
Trimorphed Moirai with their ever-heedful Furies!

Aeschylus (attributed), Prometheus Bound, 515-6

[5] Heraclitus, fragment 80:

εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον ἐόντα ξυνόν, καὶ δίκην ἔριν, καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ΄ ἔριν καὶ χρεώμενα [χρεών]

One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord δίκη, and that beings are naturally born by discord.

See my Some Notes on Πόλεμος and Δίκη in Heraclitus B80 and also The Balance of Physis – Notes on λόγος and ἀληθέα in Heraclitus.

In respect of the modern error of ὕβρις that is extremism, an error manifest in extremists, my understanding of an extremist is a person who tends toward harshness, or who is harsh, or who supports/incites harshness, in pursuit of some objective, usually of a political or a religious. See Appendix I – Some Explanations and Definitions.

[6] See Appendix II – The Change of Enantiodromia.

[7] The meaning here of ψυχή is derived from the usage of Homer, Aeschylus, Aristotle, etcetera, and implies Life qua being. Or, expressed another way, living beings are emanations of, and thus manifest, ψυχή. This sense of ψυχή is beautifully expressed in a, in my view, rather mis-understood fragment attributed to Heraclitus:

ψυχῆισιν θάνατος ὕδωρ γενέσθαι, ὕδατι δὲ θάνατος γῆν γενέσθαι, ἐκ γῆς δὲ ὕδωρ γίνεται, ἐξ ὕδατος δὲ ψυχή. Fragment 36

Where the water begins our living ends and where earth begins water ends, and yet earth nurtures water and from that water, Life.

[8] In respect of the numinous principle of Δίκα, refer to Appendix II – The Principle of Δίκα.

[9] Although φύσις has a natural tendency to become covered up (Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ – concealment accompanies Physis) it can be uncovered through λόγος and πάθει μάθος.

[10] Wu-wei is a Taoist term used in The Way of Pathei-Mathos to refer to a personal ‘letting-be’ deriving from a feeling, a knowing, that an essential part of wisdom is cultivation of an interior personal balance and which cultivation requires acceptance that one must work with, or employ, things according to their nature, their φύσις, for to do otherwise is incorrect, and inclines us toward, or is, being excessive – that is, toward the error, the unbalance, that is hubris, an error often manifest in personal arrogance, excessive personal pride, and insolence – that is, a disrespect for the numinous.

In practice, the knowledge, the understanding, the intuition, the insight that is wu-wei is a knowledge, an understanding, that can be acquired from empathy, πάθει μάθος, and by a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous. This knowledge and understanding is of wholeness and that life, things/beings, change, flow, exist, in certain natural ways which we human beings cannot change however hard we might try; that such a hardness of human trying, a belief in such hardness, is unwise, un-natural, upsets the natural balance and can cause misfortune/suffering for us and/or for others, now or in the future. Thus success lies in discovering the inner nature (the physis) of things/beings/ourselves and gently, naturally, slowly, working with this inner nature, not striving against it.

[11] Heraclitus, fragment 112:

σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη, καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαίοντας

Most excellent is balanced reasoning, for that skill can tell inner character from outer.

[12] In particular, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus; and the Oedipus Tyrannus, and Antigone, of Sophocles. In respect of Oedipus Tyrannus, refer, for example, to vv.863ff and vv.1329-1338

In much mis-understood verses in The Agamemnon (1654-1656) Clytaemnestra makes it known that she still is aware of the power, and importance, of δίκη. Of not killing to excess:

μηδαμῶς, ὦ φίλτατ᾽ ἀνδρῶν, ἄλλα δράσωμεν κακά.
ἀλλὰ καὶ τάδ᾽ ἐξαμῆσαι πολλά, δύστηνον θέρος.
πημονῆς δ᾽ ἅλις γ᾽ ὑπάρχει: μηδὲν αἱματώμεθα.

The aforementioned verses are often mis-translated to give some nonsense such as: ‘No more violence. Here is a monstrous harvest and a bitter reaping time. There is pain enough already. Let us not be bloody now’.

However, what Aeschylus actually has Clytaemnestra say is:

“Let us not do any more harm for to reap these many would make it an unlucky harvest: injure them just enough, but do not stain us with their blood.”

She is being practical (and quite Hellenic) and does not want to bring misfortune (from the gods) upon herself, or Aegisthus, by killing to excess. The killings she has done are, however, quite acceptable to her – she has vigorously defended them claiming it was her natural duty to avenge her daughter and the insult done to her by Agamemnon bringing his mistress, Cassandra, into her home. Clytaemnestra shows no pity for the Elders whom Aegisthus wishes to kill: “if you must”, she says, “you can injure them. But do not kill them – that would be unlucky for us.” That would be going just too far, and overstep what she still perceives as the natural, the proper, limits of mortal behaviour.

[13] Two fragments attributed to Heraclitus are of interest in this respect – 112, and 123. For 112 refer to my The Balance of Physis – Notes on λόγος and ἀληθέα in Heraclitus. For 123, refer to my Physis, Nature, Concealment, and Natural Change.

[14] Hesiod, Theogony v. 901 – Εὐνουμίην τε Δίκην τε καὶ Εἰρήνην τεθαλυῖαν

In effect, a personified Judgement is the goddess of the natural balance – evident in the ancestral customs, the ways, the way of life, the ethos, of a community – whose judgement, δίκη, is “in accord with”, has the nature or the character of, what tends to restore such balance after some deed or deeds by an individual or individuals have upset or disrupted that balance. This sense of δίκη as one’s ancestral customs is evident, for example, in Homer’s Odyssey:

νῦν δ᾽ ἐθέλω ἔπος ἄλλο μεταλλῆσαι καὶ ἐρέσθαι
Νέστορ᾽, ἐπεὶ περὶ οἶδε δίκας ἠδὲ φρόνιν ἄλλων
τρὶς γὰρ δή μίν φασιν ἀνάξασθαι γένε᾽ ἀνδρῶν
ὥς τέ μοι ἀθάνατος ἰνδάλλεται εἰσοράασθαι

Book III, 243-246

I now wish to ask Nestor some questions to find out about some other things,
For he understands others and knows more about our customs than them,
Having been – so it is said – a Chieftain for three generations of mortals,
And, to look at, he seems to me to be one of those immortals

[15] Πόλεμος is not some abstract ‘war’ or strife or kampf, but rather that which is or becomes the genesis of beings from Being (the separation of beings from Being), and thus not only that which manifests as δίκη but also accompanies ἔρις because it is the nature of Πόλεμος that beings, born because of and by ἔρις, can be returned to Being, become bound together – be whole – again by enantiodromia.

Thus πόλεμος – like ψυχή and πάθει μάθος and ἐναντιοδρομίας and ὕβρις and δίκη as δίκη/Δίκην/Δίκα – is a philosophical principle and should therefore in my view not be blandly translated by a single word or term, but rather should be left untranslated or be transliterated, thus requiring for its understanding a certain thoughtful reasoning and thence interpretation according to context.

In respect of such interpretation, it is for example interesting that in the recounted tales of Greek mythology attributed to Aesop, and in circulation at the time of Heraclitus, a personified πόλεμος (as the δαίμων of kindred strife) married a personified ὕβρις (as the δαίμων of arrogant pride) and that it was a common folk belief that πόλεμος accompanied ὕβρις – that is, that Polemos followed Hubris around rather than vice versa, causing or bringing ἔρις.

[16] See Appendix II. The saying – attributed to Heraclitus – is from Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (ix. 7)

[17] Fragment 112.

[18] For an explanation is what is meant here by innocence, see the entry in Appendix I, which entry is based on the brief mention of innocence in the first part of section IV – An Appreciation of The Numinous.

Appendix I
Some Explanations, Terms, and Definitions

Acausal

The acausal is not a generalization – a concept – deriving from a collocation of assumed, imagined, or causally observed Phainómenon, but instead is that wordless, conceptless, a-temporal, knowing which empathy reveals and which a personal πάθει μάθοςand an appreciation of the numinous often inclines us toward. That is, the acausal is a direct and personal (individual) revealing of beings and Being which does not depend on denoting or naming.

What is so revealed is the a-causal nature of some beings, the connexion which exists between living beings, and how living beings are emanations of ψυχή.

Thus speculations and postulations regarding the acausal only serve to obscure the nature of the acausal or distance us from that revealing of the acausal that empathy and πάθει μάθος and an appreciation of the numinous provide.

ἀρετή

The prized Hellenic virtue which can roughly be translated by the English word ‘excellence’ but which also implies what is naturally distinguishable – what is pre-eminent – because it reveals or shows certain valued qualities such as beauty, honour, valour, harmony.

Compassion

The English word compassion dates from around 1340 CE and the word in its original sense (and as used in this work) means benignity, which word derives from the Latin benignitatem, the sense imputed being of a kind, compassionate, well-mannered character, disposition, or deed. Benignity came into English usage around the same time as compassion; for example, the word occurs in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde [ ii. 483 ] written around 1374 CE.

Hence, compassion is understood as meaning being kindly disposed toward and/or feeling a sympathy with someone (or some living being) affected by pain/suffering/grief or who is enduring vicissitudes.

The word compassion itself is derived from com, meaning together-with, combined with pati, meaning to-suffer/to-endure and derived from the classical Latin passiō. Thus useful synonyms for compassion, in this original sense, are compassivity and benignity.

Cosmic Perspective
The Cosmic Perspective refers to our place in the Cosmos, to the fact that we human beings are simply one fragile fallible mortal biological life-form on one planet orbiting one star in one galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies. Thus in terms of this perspective all our theories, our ideas, our beliefs, our abstractions are merely the opinionated product of our limited fallible Earth-bound so-called ‘intelligence’, an ‘intelligence’, an understanding, we foolishly, arrogantly, pridefully have a tendency to believe in and exalt as if we are somehow ‘the centre of the Universe’ and cosmically important.

The Cosmic Perspective inclines us – or can incline us – toward wu-wei, toward avoiding the error of hubris, toward humility, and thus toward an appreciation of the numinous.

δαίμων

A δαίμων is not one of the pantheon of major Greek gods – θεοί - but rather a lesser type of divinity who might be assigned by those gods to bring good fortune or misfortune to human beings and/or watch over certain human beings and especially particular numinous (sacred) places.

δίκη

Depending on context, δίκη could be the judgement of an individual (or Judgement personified), or the natural and the necessary balance, or the correct/customary/ancestral way, or what is expected due to custom, or what is considered correct and natural, and so on.

A personified Judgement – the Δίκην of Hesiod – is the goddess of the natural balance, evident in the ancestral customs, the ways, the way of life, the ethos, of a community, whose judgement, δίκη, is “in accord with”, has the nature or the character of, what tends to restore such balance after some deed or deeds by an individual or individuals have upset or disrupted that balance. This sense of δίκη as one’s ancestral customs is evident, for example, in Homer (Odyssey, III, 244).

The modern numinous principle of Δίκα – qv. Appendix III – suggests what lies beyond and what may have been the genesis of δίκη personified as the goddess, Judgement.

Empathy

Etymologically, this fairly recent English word, used to translate the German Einfühlung, derives, via the late Latin sympathia, from the Greek συμπάθεια – συμπαθής – and is thus formed from the prefix σύν (sym) together with παθ- [root of πάθος] meaning enduring/suffering, feeling: πάσχειν, to endure/suffer.

As used and defined by the philosophy of pathei-mathos, empathy – ἐμπάθεια – is a natural human faculty: that is, a noble intuition about another human being or another living being. When empathy is developed and used, as envisaged by that way of life, then it is a specific and extended type of συμπάθεια. That is, it is a type of and a means to knowing and understanding another human being and/or other living beings – and thus differs in nature from compassion.

Enantiodromia

The unusual compound Greek word ἐναντιοδρομίας occurs in a summary of the philosophy of Heraclitus by Diogenes Laërtius.

It is used here to refer to, to name, to describe, the process – the natural change, the reformation – that occurs or which can occur in a human being because of or following πάθει μάθος.

For further details regarding enantiodromia refer to Appendix II – The Change of Enantiodromia.

ἔρις

Strife; discord; disruption; a quarrel between friends or kin. As in the Odyssey:

ἥ τ᾽ ἔριν Ἀτρεΐδῃσι μετ᾽ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἔθηκε.

Who placed strife between those two sons of Atreus

Odyssey, 3, 136

According to the recounted tales of Greek mythology attributed to Aesop, ἔρις was caused by, or was a consequence of, the marriage between a personified πόλεμος (as the δαίμων of kindred strife) and a personified ὕβρις (as the δαίμων of arrogant pride) with Polemos rather forlornly following Hubris around rather than vice versa. Eris is thus the child of Polemos and Hubris.

Extremism

By extreme I mean to be harsh, so that my understanding of an extremist is a person who tends toward harshness, or who is harsh, or who supports/incites harshness, in pursuit of some objective, usually of a political or a religious nature. Here, harsh is: rough, severe, a tendency to be unfeeling, unempathic.

Hence extremism is considered to be: (a) the result of such harshness, and (b) the principles, the causes, the characteristics, that promote, incite, or describe the harsh action of extremists. In addition, a fanatic is considered to be someone with a surfeit of zeal or whose enthusiasm for some objective, or for some cause, is intemperate.

In the philosophical terms of the way of pathei-mathos, an extremist is someone who commits the error of hubris; and error which enantiodromia – following from πάθει μάθος - can sometimes correct or forestall.

Honour

The English word honour dates from around 1200 CE, deriving from the Latin honorem (meaning refined, grace, beauty) via the Old French (and thence Anglo-Norman) onor/onur. As used by The Way of Pathei-Mathos, honour means an instinct for and an adherence to what is fair, dignified, and valourous. An honourable person is thus someone of manners, fairness, natural dignity, and valour.

In respect of early usage of the term, two quotes may be of interest. The first, from c. 1393 CE, is taken from a poem, in Middle English, by John Gower:

And riht in such a maner wise
Sche bad thei scholde hire don servise,
So that Achilles underfongeth
As to a yong ladi belongeth
Honour, servise and reverence.

John Gower, Confessio Amantis. Liber Quintus vv. 2997-3001 [Macaulay, G.C., ed. The Works of John Gower. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1901]

The second is from several centuries later:

” Honour – as something distinct from mere probity, and which supposes in gentlemen a stronger abhorrence of perfidy, falsehood, or cowardice, and a more elevated and delicate sense of the dignity of virtue, than are usually found in vulgar minds.”

George Lyttelton. History of the Life of Henry the Second. London, Printed for J. Dodsley. M DCC LXXV II [1777] (A new ed., cor.) vol 3, p.178

Innocence

Innocence is regarded as an attribute of those who, being personally unknown to us, are therefore unjudged us by and who thus are given the benefit of the doubt. For this presumption of innocence of others – until direct personal experience, and individual and empathic knowing of them, prove otherwise – is the fair, the reasoned, the numinous, the human, thing to do.

Empathy and πάθει μάθος incline us toward treating other human beings as we ourselves would wish to be treated; that is they incline us toward fairness, toward self-restraint, toward being well-mannered, and toward an appreciation and understanding of innocence.

Numinous

The numinous is what manifests or can manifest or remind us of (what can reveal) the natural balance of ψυχή; a balance which ὕβρις upsets. This natural balance – our being as human beings – is or can be manifest to us in or by what is harmonious, or what reminds us of what is harmonious and beautiful. In a practical way, it is what we regard or come to appreciate as ‘sacred’ and dignified; what expresses our humanity and thus places us, as individuals, in our correct relation to ψυχή, and which relation is that we are but one mortal emanation of ψυχή.

Πόλεμος

Heraclitus fragment 80

Πόλεμος is not some abstract ‘war’ or strife or kampf, but rather that which is or becomes the genesis of beings from Being (the separation of beings from Being), and thus not only that which manifests as δίκη but also accompanies ἔρις because it is the nature of Πόλεμος that beings, born because of and by ἔρις, can be returned to Being, become bound together – be whole – again by enantiodromia.

Furthermore, Polemos was originally the δαίμων (not the god) of kindred strife, whether familial, of friends, or of one’s πόλις (one’s clan and their places of dwelling). Thus, to describe Polemos, as is sometimes done, as the god of war, is doubly incorrect.

Physis (φύσις)

φύσις suggests either the Homeric - Odyssey, Book 10, vv. 302-3 – usage of nature, or character, as in Herodotus (2.5.2):

Αἰγύπτου γὰρ φύσις ἐστὶ τῆς χώρης τοιήδε

or Φύσις (Physis) as in Heraclitus fragment 123 – that is, the natural nature of all beings, beyond their outer appearance, and which natural nature we, as human beings, have a natural [an unconscious] inclination to conceal; either because of ὕβρις or through an ignorance, an unknowing, of ourselves as an emanation of ψυχή.

In terms of the nature or the character of an individual:

σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη, καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαίοντας

Most excellent is balanced reasoning, for that skill can tell inner character from outer.

Heraclitus fragment 112

ὕβρις

ὕβρις (hubris) is the error of personal insolence, of going beyond the proper limits set by: (a) reasoned (balanced) judgement – σωφρονεῖν – and by (b) an awareness, a personal knowing, of the numinous, and which knowing of the numinous can arise from empathy and πάθει μάθος.

Hubris upsets the natural balance – is contrary to ἁρμονίη – and often results from a person or persons striving for or clinging to some causal abstraction.

According to The Way of Pathei-Mathos, ὕβρις disrupts – and conceals – our appreciation of what is numinous and thus of what/whom we should respect, classically understood as ψυχή and θεοί and Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ᾽ Ἐρινύες and δαιμόνων and those sacred places guarded or watched over by δαιμόνων.

Wu-wei

Wu-wei is a Taoist term used in The Way of Pathei-Mathos to refer to a personal ‘letting-be’ deriving from a feeling, a knowing, that an essential part of wisdom is cultivation of an interior personal balance and which cultivation requires acceptance that one must work with, or employ, things according to their nature, their φύσις, for to do otherwise is incorrect, and inclines us toward, or is, being excessive – that is, toward the error, the unbalance, that is hubris, an error often manifest in personal arrogance, excessive personal pride, and insolence – that is, a disrespect for the numinous.

In practice, the knowledge, the understanding, the intuition, the insight that is wu-wei is a knowledge, an understanding, that can be acquired from empathy, πάθει μάθος, and by a knowing of and an appreciation of the numinous. This knowledge and understanding is of wholeness, and that life, things/beings, change, flow, exist, in certain natural ways which we human beings cannot change however hard we might try; that such a hardness of human trying, a belief in such hardness, is unwise, un-natural, upsets the natural balance and can cause misfortune/suffering for us and/or for others, now or in the future. Thus success lies in discovering the inner nature (the physis) of things/beings/ourselves and gently, naturally, slowly, working with this inner nature, not striving against it.
ψυχή

Life qua being. Our being as a living existent is considered an emanation of ψυχή. Thus ψυχή is what ‘animates’ us and what gives us our nature, φύσις, as human beings. Our nature is that of a mortal fallible being veering between σωφρονεῖν (thoughtful reasoning, and thus fairness) and ὕβρις.

Appendix II
The Change of Enantiodromia

The Meaning of Enantiodromia

The unusual compound Greek word ἐναντιοδρομίας occurs in a summary of the philosophy of Heraclitus by Diogenes Laërtius:

πάντα δὲ γίνεσθαι καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐναντιοδρομίας ἡρμόσθαι τὰ ὄντα (ix. 7)

This unusual word is usually translated as something like ‘conflict of opposites’ or ‘opposing forces’ which I consider are incorrect for several reasons.

Firstly, in my view, a transliteration should be used instead of some translation, for the Greek expression suggests something unique, something which exists in its own right as a principle or ‘thing’ and which uniqueness of meaning has a context, with both context and uniqueness lost if a bland translation is attempted. Lost, as the uniqueness, and context, of for example, δαιμόνων becomes lost if simply translated as ‘spirits’ (or worse, as ‘gods’), or as the meaning of κακός in Hellenic culture is lost if mistranslated as ‘evil’.

Second, the context seems to me to hint at something far more important than ‘conflict of opposites’, the context being the interesting description of the philosophy of Heraclitus before and after the word occurs, as given by Diogenes Laërtius:

1) ἐκ πυρὸς τὰ πάντα συνεστάναι

2) εἰς τοῦτο ἀναλύεσθαι

3) πάντα δὲ γίνεσθαι καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐναντιοδρομίας ἡρμόσθαι τὰ ὄντα

4) καὶ πάντα ψυχῶν εἶναι καὶ δαιμόνων πλήρη

The foundation/base/essence of all beings [ 'things' ] is pyros to which they return, with all [of them] by genesis appropriately apportioned [separated into portions] to be bound together again by enantiodromia, and all filled/suffused/vivified with/by ψυχή and Dæmons.

This raises several interesting questions, not least concerning ψυχή and δαιμόνων, but also regarding the sense of πυρὸς. Is pyros here a philosophical principle – such as ψυχή – or used as in fragment 43, the source of which is also Diogenes Laërtius:

ὕβριν χρὴ σβεννύναι μᾶλλον ἢ πυρκαϊὴν (ix 2)

Better to deal with your hubris before you confront that fire

Personally, I incline toward the former, of some principle being meant, given the context, and the generalization – ἐκ πυρὸς τὰ πάντα. In respect of ψυχῶν καὶ δαιμόνων I would suggest that what is implied is the numinous, our apprehension of The Numen, and which numen is the source of ψυχή and the origin of Dæmons. For a δαίμων is not one of the pantheon of major Greek gods – θεοί - but another type of divinity (that is, another emanation of the numen; another manifestation of the numinous) who might be assigned by those numinous gods to bring good fortune or misfortune to human beings and/or who watch over certain human beings and especially over particular numinous (sacred) places.

Thus the above summary of the philosophy of Heraclitus might be paraphrased as:

The foundation of all beings is Pyros to which they return, with all by genesis appropriately apportioned to be bound together again by enantiodromia, with all beings suffused with [are emanations of] the numen.

Furthermore, hubris disrupts – and conceals – our appreciation of the numen, our appreciation of ψυχή and of Dæmons: of what is numinous and what/whom we should respect. A disruption that makes us unbalanced, makes us disrespect the numinous and that of the numinous (such as δαιμόνων and θεοί and sacred places), and which unbalance enantiodromia can correct, with enantiodromia suggesting a confrontation – that expected dealing with our hubris necessary in order to return to Pyros, the source of beings. Here, Pyros is understood not as we understand ‘fire’ – and not even as some sort of basic physical element among other elements such as water – but rather as akin to both the constant ‘warmth and the light of the Sun’ (that brings life) and the sudden lightning that, as from Zeus, can serve as warning (omen) and retribution, and which can destroy and be a cause of devastating fire and thus also of the regeneration/rebuilding that often follows from such fires and from the learning, the respect, that arises from appreciating warnings (omens) from the gods. All of which perhaps explains fragment 64:

τὰ δὲ πάντα οἰακίζει Κεραυνός

All beings are guided by Lightning

Enantiodromia in the Philosophy of Pathei-Mathos

In the philosophy of pathei-mathos, enantiodromia is understood as the process – the natural change – that occurs or which can occur in a human being because of or following πάθει μάθος. For part of πάθει μάθος is a ‘confrontational contest’ – an interior battle – and an acceptance of the need to take part in this battle and ‘face the consequences’, one of which is learning the (often uncomfortable) truth about one’s own unbalanced, strife-causing, nature.

If successful in this confrontation, there is or there can be a positive, moral, development of the nature, the character – the φύσις (physis) – of the person because of that revealing and that appreciation (or re-appreciation) of the numinous whose genesis is this pathei-mathos, and which appreciation includes an awareness of why ὕβρις is an error (often the error) of unbalance, of disrespect, of a going beyond the due limits, and which ὕβρις is the genesis of the τύραννος and of the modern error of extremism. For the tyrannos and the extremist (and their extremisms) embody and give rise to and perpetuate ἔρις [1].

Thus enantiodromia reveals the nature of, and restores in individuals, the natural balance necessary for ψυχή to flourish – which natural balance is δίκη as Δίκα [2] and which restoration of balance within the individual results in ἁρμονίη [3], manifest as ἁρμονίη is in the cultivation, in the individual, of wu-wei and σωφρονεῖν (a fair and balanced personal, individual, judgement).

Notes

[1] Heraclitus, fragment 80: εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον ἐόντα ξυνόν, καὶ δίκην ἔριν, καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ΄ ἔριν καὶ χρεώμενα [χρεών]

One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord δίκη, and that beings are naturally born by discord.

See my Some Notes on Πόλεμος and Δίκη in Heraclitus B80 and also The Balance of Physis – Notes on λόγος and ἀληθέα in Heraclitus.

[2] In respect of the numinous principle of Δίκα, refer to Appendix III.

[3] Although φύσις has a natural tendency to become covered up (Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ – concealment accompanies Physis) it can be uncovered through λόγος and πάθει μάθος.

Appendix III

The Principle of Δίκα

Δίκα is that noble, respectful, balance understood, for example, by Sophocles (among many others) – for instance, Antigone respects the natural balance, the customs and traditions of her own culture, given by the gods, whereas Creon verges towards and finally commits, like Oedipus in Oedipus Tyrannus, the error of ὕβρις and is thus “taught a lesson” (just like Oedipus) by the gods because, as Aeschylus wrote -

Δίκα δὲ τοῖς μὲν παθοῦσ-
ιν μαθεῖν ἐπιρρέπει

The goddess, Judgement, favours someone learning from adversity.

Agamemnon, 250-251

In respect of Δίκα, I write – spell – it thus in this modern way with a capital Δ to intimate a new, a particular and numinous, philosophical principle, and differentiate it from the more general δίκη. As a numinous principle, or axiom, Δίκα thus suggests what lies beyond and what may have been the genesis of δίκη personified as the goddess, Judgement – the goddess of natural balance, of the ancestral way and ancestral customs.

Thus, Δίκα does not mean nor imply something theological, but rather implies the natural balance, the reasoned judgement, the thoughtful reasoning – σωφρονεῖν – that πάθει μάθος brings and restores, and which accumulated πάθει μάθος of a particular folk or πόλις forms the basis for their ancestral customs. δίκη is therefore, as the numinous principle Δίκα, what may be said to be a particular and a necessary balance between ἀρετή and ὕβρις – between the ὕβρις that often results when the personal, the natural, quest for ἀρετή becomes unbalanced and excessive.

That is, when ἔρις (discord) is or becomes δίκη – as suggested by Heraclitus in Fragment 80 -

εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον ἐόντα ξυνόν, καὶ δίκην ἔριν, καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ΄ ἔριν καὶ χρεώμενα [χρεών]

One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord δίκη, and that beings are naturally born by discord.

cc David Myatt 2012 CE
(Second edition)
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Frequently Asked Questions About The Numinous Way

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Frequently Asked Questions About The Numinous Way

Last Modified: 5/April/2012

What Is The Numinous Way?

The Numinous Way is a spiritual (a numinous) philosophy – an individual ethical way of living – based on the virtues of compassion, empathy, humility, and personal honour.

The foundation of this Way is that of empathy. As used and defined by The Numinous Way, empathy is a natural human faculty: that is, a noble intuition about another human being or another living being. When empathy is developed and used, as envisaged by The Numinous Way, it is a specific and extended type of sympathy and a means to knowing and understanding another human being and/or other living beings

Philosophically, empathy presents to us, or can present to us, a type of knowing – a perception, an awareness – quite distinct from that posited by both conventional philosophy and experimental science. The Numinous Way thus adds the faculty of empathy to our physical senses; adds the perception of empathy to the perception of Phainómenon, and thus to the Aristotelian essentials of conventional philosophy and experimental science.

The use and the development of empathy makes us aware of how what we as individuals do, or do not do, affects or can affect other human beings and the other life with which we share this planet we call Earth. In effect, empathy reveals the natural living, the affective, connexion we are to Life, and how our normal perception of ourselves as a singular, a separate, individual is incorrect.

An awareness of this connexion therefore inclines us toward compassion, toward the human virtue of having sympatheia (benignity) with and toward other living beings. To be compassionate is to try to not cause or contribute to the suffering, or to aid in the alleviation of the suffering, of other living beings, where suffering is understood as what is distressing, painful/injurious (physical and emotional), unfair, redolent of grief and sadness.

One way in which we can avoid causing or contributing to suffering – and aid the alleviation of suffering – is by living, by acting, in an honourable way. In essence, honour is an expression of the natural balance of Life – the harmony of human living – and in practical terms honour is manifest in fairness, reasoned/balanced judgement, manners, wu-wei, and an awareness and appreciation of the numinous.

Honour and compassion are thus practical consequences, practical manifestations, of empathy.

What is The Numinous?

The numinous is what manifests or can manifest or remind us of the natural balance of Life; of what is harmonious, or what reminds us of what is harmonious and beautiful. In a practical way, it is what we regard or come to appreciate as ‘sacred’ and dignified; what expresses our humanity.

We are reminded of this natural balance, of what is numinous – we can come to know, to experience, the numinous – by pathei-mathos. That is, by the process of learning from personal adversity/personal suffering/personal grief.

An aspect of this learning is an appreciation, an awareness, of The Cosmic Perspective: of ourselves as one fallible, mortal, fragile biological, microcosmic, nexion on one planet in one Galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies; one connexion to, one emanation of, all other Life. In essence, pathei-mathos teaches us humility and the value of personal love.

What is Wu-Wei?

Wu-wei is a Taoist term used in The Numinous Way to refer to a personal ‘letting-be’ deriving from a feeling, a knowing, that an essential part of wisdom is cultivation of an interior personal balance and which cultivation requires acceptance that one must work with, or employ, things according to their nature, for to do otherwise is incorrect, and inclines us toward, or is, being excessive – that is, toward the error, the unbalance, that is hubris, an error often manifest in personal arrogance, excessive personal pride, and insolence – that is, a disrespect for the numinous.

In practice, wu-wei is the cultivation of a certain (empathic, numinous) perspective – that life, things/beings, change, flow, exist, in certain natural ways which we human beings cannot change however hard we might try; that such a hardness of human trying, a belief in such hardness, is unwise, un-natural, upsets the natural balance and can cause misfortune/suffering for us and/or for others, now or in the future. Thus success lies in discovering the inner nature (the physis) of things/beings/ourselves and gently, naturally, slowly, working with this inner nature, not striving against it.

What does Living According to The Numinous Way mean?

Living according to The Numinous Way is simple and means:

being compassionate or inclining toward compassion by trying to avoid causing, or contributing, to suffering;
being honourable – fair, reasonable, well-mannered, just, dignified, balanced;
appreciating the value and importance of personal love;
inclining toward a personal humility;
cultivating wu-wei.

The Numinous Way is an ethical way of living which individuals are free to choose. There are no spiritual techniques or esoteric exercises; no supplication to some-thing or to some posited Being. No expectation of reward, in this life or in some posited next life. No goal. There is just a living of life in a certain natural way.

Is The Numinous Way a religion?

The Numinous Way is not a religion; that is, it is not an organized way of worship, devotion, and faith; and there is no belief in some deity/deities, or in some supreme Being or in some supra-personal power or in some after-life or in karma as karma is understood by the Way known as Buddhism.

Essentially, The Numinous Way is a way of a gentle interior personal and individual change; an inclination to live in a certain ethical manner so as not to intentionally cause suffering, so as not to upset the natural balance of Life.

The answer as to why someone would want to live in this numinous, this particular spiritual, way, is the answer of empathy; of the knowledge of ourselves, of others, of Life, of Nature, that empathy provides.

This is the knowledge that the separation-of-otherness is an illusive, a deceptive, appearance. The knowledge of our affective and effecting connexion to all Life, which is a knowledge of The Cosmic Perspective, of ourselves as just one microcosmic emanation of Life on one planet in one Galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies.

In respect of other religions, there is tolerance and respect, since any Way or religion which manifests, which expresses, which guides individuals toward, the numinous humility we human beings need is good. For according to The Numinous Way such personal humility – that which prevents us from committing hubris, whatever the raison d’être, the theology, the philosophy – is a presencing of the numinous since it is a personal humility – whatever the source – that expresses our true developed (that is, our rational and empathic) human nature and which nature many other Ways or religions make us aware of or can remind us of.

Is there a difference between The Numinous Way and The Philosophy of The Numen?

No; they both refer to the ethical way of compassion, empathy, humility, and personal honour.

What is the separation-of-otherness?

It is term used in an attempt to describe how our normal perception of ourselves as a singular, a separate, individual is incorrect, an error which empathy can correct.

Empathy involves a translocation of ourselves and thus a knowing-of another living-being as that living-being is, without presumptions and sans all ideations, all projections. In a simple way, empathy involves a numinous sympathy with another living-being; a becoming – for a causal moment or moments – of that other-being, so that we know, can feel, can understand, the suffering or the joy of that living-being. In such moments, there is no distinction made between them and us – there is only the flow of life; only the presencing and the ultimate unity of Life itself.

What about politics and social reform?

The Numinous Way, being a personal spiritual way, is not concerned with the theory or the practice of governance, and is therefore apolitical. Its concern is with individuals, with their interior change; with ethical living.

The Numinous Way approach to the problems of society – to reform and social change, and to The State – is also an individual one, deriving from the faculty of empathy, and from the uniquely personal judgement that empathy and a personal knowing reveal in the immediacy-of-the-moment.

Reform and change are understood as personal, direct; of and involving individuals who are personally known; and of necessity begins with the necessary inner change in the individual. That is, that inner, personal, change – in individuals, of their nature, their character – is understood as the ethical means to solving such personal and social problems as exist and arise. That the only effective, long-lasting, change and reform is the one that evolves human beings and thus changes what, in them, predisposes them, or inclines them toward, doing or what urges them to do, what is dishonourable, undignified, unfair, and uncompassionate.

The basis for numinous social change and reform is aiding, helping, assisting individuals in a direct and personal manner and in practical ways, with such help, assistance, and aid arising because we personally know or are personally concerned about or involved with those individuals. In brief, being compassionate, empathic, understanding, sensitive, kind.

What about Love?

The Numinous Way regards a shared, mutual, love between two human beings as the most beautiful, the most numinous, the most human virtue of all.

What is meant by The Cosmic Perspective?

The Cosmic Perspective refers to our place in the Cosmos, to the fact that we human beings are simply one fragile fallible mortal biological life-form on one planet orbiting one star in one galaxy in a Cosmos of billions of galaxies. Thus in terms of this perspective all our theories, our ideas, our beliefs, our abstractions are merely the opinionated product of our limited fallible Earth-bound so-called ‘intelligence’, an ‘intelligence’, an understanding, we foolishly, arrogantly, pridefully have a tendency to believe in and exalt as if we are somehow ‘the centre of the Universe’ and cosmically important.

The Cosmic Perspective inclines us – or can incline us – toward wu-wei, toward avoiding the error of hubris, toward humility, and thus toward an appreciation of the numinous.

What does authority mean in the philosophy of The Numinous Way?

For The Numinous Way, it is the exercise of the judgement of the individual – arising from the use of empathy and the guidance that is personal honour – which expresses our human nature.

It is honour, the understanding that empathy provides, and the judgement of the individual, that are legitimate, moral, numinous, and thence the basis for authority. This means that authority resides in and extends only to individuals – by virtue of their honour, their empathy, and manifest in their own personal judgement, and therefore this always personal individual authority cannot be abstracted out from such personal judgement of individuals. This is a new type of authority – that of the individual whose concern is not power over others but over themselves, and which type of power is manifest in a living by honour, and thence in self-responsibility, self-control, and being fair.

How does The Numinous Way view race and racism?

Race is a manifestation of the causal separation-of-otherness, and thus contradicts empathy and the intuitive knowing of and sympathy with the living other that individual empathy provides or can make us aware of.

The notion of race separates, divides, human beings into manufactured lifeless categories which nullify the empathic knowing of individual human beings. Such assignment of individuals to a posited abstract category – some assumed ‘race’ or sub-race – is irrelevant, since individual human beings are or have the potential to be unique individual human beings, so that such an assignment, whatever the alleged reason, is a dehumanizing of those individuals. For our humanity is expressed by an individual and personal knowing of individuals, by a personal interaction with others on the basis of respect, tolerance, reason, and honour, and which personal knowledge of them renders their alleged or assumed ethnicity or ancestry irrelevant.

Racism is immoral, reprehensible. What matters is the person, the individual as an individual human being who is unique or who has the potential to be unique. What matters, what is human and moral, is a personal knowing of individuals and treating others with fairness, and tolerance, on the basis of equality.

Is honour important in The Numinous Way?

Honour, being a practical, a human, manifestation of the natural balance of Life, of individual authority, is a means to living in a numinous way and thus both a means to avoid the error, the unbalance, that is hubris and also a means to restore the numinous balance that the dishonourable, undignified, unfair, and uncompassionate, personal deeds of others have upset and which deeds one is personally aware of in the immediacy-of-the-moment. Thus to defend one’s self if attacked is the natural, the honourable, thing to do, as is valorously defending someone in the immediacy-of-the-moment who is faced with someone or some many acting dishonourably, unfairly.

What are the ethics of The Numinous Way?

The ethics of The Numinous Way derive from the revealing – the insight, the knowing, the understanding, the feeling – that the faculty of empathy provides when we, as an individual, personally interact with another living being over a certain period of time. What is thus discovered by means of empathy is sympatheia – a numinous sympathy with the-living-other – and how, as an individual, we are an affecting connexion to all life, and thus how our assumed separation, as an individual, is an illusion, a manifestation of hubris. We therefore become aware of how we affect or can affect others; how they affect or can affect us; and of how their suffering, their pain, their joy, their grief, is ours beyond the barrier of our inner and our outer egoist.

This discovery, this revealing, thus inclines us toward compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, love, tolerance, peace, fairness, wu-wei, and toward being non-judgemental in respect of those we do not personally know and thus have no experience of, have had no empathic contact with. For it is empathy – the close and the extended personal interaction with individuals, on an individual basis, that empathy requires – that is the natural and the moral way of assessing, of really knowing, another human being.

This means two important things. First, that we treat human beings in a human way – that is, as individuals, recognizing that they are unique or have the potential to become unique; that they, like us, can and do suffer pain, grief, sadness, joy; that they, like us, have hopes, dreams. Second, that all individuals we do not personally know are or should be presumed to be ‘innocent’, unjudged, and so are to be given the benefit of the doubt; for this presumption of innocence – until personal experience and empathic individual knowing of them prove otherwise – is the fair, the honourable, the moral thing to do.

The revealing that empathy provides is of The Cosmic Perspective; of the numinous; of why hubris is an error of judgement, an upsetting of the natural balance of Life; of how most human beings have the ability to change for the better.

What is meant by pathei-mathos?

Pathei-mathos (πάθει μάθος – qv. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 174-183) is the process of learning from personal adversity/personal suffering/hard personal experience. It is thus a means of developing a good, a fair, a balanced personal judgement.

The Numinous Way considers that pathei-mathos is also a means whereby we can discover the numinous and thus appreciate the need to avoid the error of hubris.

Thus, an alternative term for The Numinous Way might be The Way of Pathei-Mathos.

What is meant by the term abstraction?

The Numinous Way understands an abstraction as the manufacture, and use of, some idea, ideal, ‘image’, form, or category, and thus some generalization about, and/or some assignment of an individual or individuals – and/or some being, some ‘thing’ – to some group or category with the implicit acceptance of the separateness, in causal Space-Time, of such a being/beings/things/individuals.

The assignment of human beings to some abstraction (some abstract category) – such as some assumed race (e.g. Negro), or some occupation (e.g ‘prostitute’) or according to some deed (real or alleged, such as ‘traitor’ or ‘heretic’ or ‘hero’) – always involves either (i) some derogatory perception of, or some pejorative judgement being made about, an individual on the basis of the qualities or the attributes that are believed or assumed to belong to that abstraction, and/or (ii) some idealization/glorification of those so assigned to some abstract category. One consequence is that those so assigned to some pejorative category become dehumanized and are often treated in an unfair, a discriminatory, manner.

The positing of some ‘perfect’ or ‘ideal’ form, category, or thing, is part of abstraction. Thus understood, abstraction encompasses terms such as ideology, idea, dogmatic/harsh beliefs, and ideals.

In philosophical terms, an abstraction is a manifestation, possibly the primary manifestation, of the-separation-of-otherness: of a lack of empathy, and which lack results in some illusive distinction being made between ‘them’ and ‘us’.

If I wanted to follow The Numinous Way what would I have to do?

The Numinous Way itself is simply the living, by individuals, of an ethical life: individuals cultivating empathy, compassion, humility, wu-wei, dignity, and honour, who thus are inclined to avoid causing suffering and inclined to doing what is fair.

There is no dogma, no organization, no officials, no supra-personal authority, no theology, no theories, no authorized or recommended praxis. There are no codes of conduct, no scriptures, no ‘sacred’ – or official/authorized – writings. There are only honourable individuals individually aware of, and respectful of, the numinous.

How does The Numinous Way compare to other spiritual ways?

The Numinous Way is just one spiritual, one numinous, one fallible, way among many; one spiritual option which individuals are free to choose. In regard to other spiritual ways and religions, there is respect and tolerance.

David Myatt
2012 ce

Image credit: NASA Blue Marble Earth Mosaic

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Pre-Socratic Philosophy, The Numinous Way, and Aesthetics

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Pre-Socratic Philosophy, The Numinous Way, Aesthetics,
and Other Questions

In From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way you described philosophy as “founded upon abstractions”. Yet, in the same work, you called your Numinous Way the new philosophy of pathei-mathos. Isn’t there a contradiction here, for aren’t you saying or implying, by calling the Numinous Way a philosophy, that it too is based on abstractions, and aren’t abstractions, according to the Numinous Way, wrong?

Personally, I do not believe there is a contradiction, although perhaps I did not express myself as well as I should have. In respect of abstractions, I was referring to conventional philosophy – a term I used several times in the essay you mentioned. By which conventional philosophy I mean the reliance on ideation – on the process of trying to find, and giving names and terms to, certain causes and then analysing being, beings, and “things”, including ourselves, in relation to what has been posited and given some abstract form.

This is, primarily, the tradition of Western philosophy from Plato until quite recently – arising from the errors of εἶδος and ἰδέα. Prior to this, is what has been perhaps incorrectly termed Pre-Socratic philosophy, and after this tradition are philosophers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger, although of course this itself is something of an inaccurate generalization, based as it is on a limited causal apprehension where some sort of linear progression, or some causal dialectical process, is assumed. But, while inaccurate, it may nevertheless be helpful in some way, for example in placing Heidegger, and others, into some kind of perspective.

For me, philosophy is what the word itself imputes - φίλος, a friend, of σοφόν; one for whom knowledge, understanding, and thence wisdom, are important. [1]

In the essay you refer to, I contrasted experimental science with conventional philosophy, although I could have used the older, and possibly more apt, term Natural Philosophy instead of experimental science. Thus, for me, The Numinous Way is indeed philosophy – although not of the conventional kind; a particular view, or explanation of, the Cosmos (Being, Reality) and how beings, “things”, what we apprehend through experimental science and otherwise, relate thereto.

If we return to the limited causal apprehension, the conventional and assumed and rather erroneous concept of the linear progression of knowledge, then one might categorize this new philosophy as having some similarity with the Pre-Socratics, which is one reason why in both From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way and Numinous Culture, The Acausal, and Living Traditions I quoted Heraclitus, and saught, for the benefit of others, to reference some of the fundamentals of The Numinous Way with certain Greek terms, such as ὕβρις, Φύσις and λόγος.

Thus, one might write and say that the foundation of The Numinous Way – of the philosophy of pathei-mathos – lies in the insights of people – Greeks – such as Heraclitus, Aeschylus, and Sophocles. Or, if one is being pedantic, one would correctly write and say that certain insights, intuitions, and reasoning, of such individuals are, or were, similar to, but not necessarily identical with, some of my own insights, intuitions, and reasoning.

But those two essays were just an attempt to provide, for The Numinous Way, some general philosophical reference points – a rather academic philosophical framework – for those who might be interested and who might find such a conventional framework useful in understanding The Numinous Way.

In From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way, you defined abstraction as the implementation, the practical application, of ὕβρις. Can you expand upon this?

The genesis of abstractionism is ὕβρις – that is, the concentration on the causal, on cause-and effect, on one’s desires/feelings in isolation. This obscures, undermines, the natural balance.

A classic example is Oedipus, as described by Sophocles in Oedipus Tyrannus. In his singular desire to find the killer of Laius, Oedipus oversteps the due limits, and upsets the natural balance both within, and external to, himself. He is blinded by mere causality (a linear thinking) and personal feelings – by his overwhelming desire for a simple cause-and-effect solution to the plague and his prideful belief that he, a mortal and master of the riddle of the Sphinx, can find or derive a solution.

The same thing also occurs to Creon, as described by Sophocles in his Antigone. Creon’s pride and stubbornness, and his rigid adherence to his own, causal, mortal, edict – which overturns the natural edict of the gods designed to give and maintain balance, harmony – leads to tragedy, to suffering.

The same thing occurred to Odysseus, who for all his mortal cunning could not contrive to return to his homeland as he wished, and

kπολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ:
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,
νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο
ἤσθιον: αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.

“…whose vigour, at sea, was weakened by many afflictions
As he strove to win life for himself and return his comrades to their homes.
But not even he, for all this yearning, could save those comrades
For they were destroyed by their own immature foolishness
Having devoured the cattle of Helios, that son of Hyperion,
Who plucked from them the day of their returning. “

In conventional philosophy, concentration on mere causality – linear thinking – led to and leads to abstractions, to the covering-up of Φύσις and λόγος, and τὸ καλόν. This emphasis on causality, on ideation, on assigning being and “things” to some abstraction, is the error of mortal pride, of hubris, arising from a lack of or an ignorance of empathy; from ignoring the gods, or, expressed un-theistically, from ignoring that supra-causal perspective (that dimension) which The Numinous Way reveals as the acausal and as the acausal manifesting, being presenced, in the causal by the numinous.

Since you have stated many times that empathy is the fundamental basis of The Numinous Way, how does this fit-in with you linking – as you did in Numinous Culture, The Acausal, and Living Traditions – empathy with λόγος? For isn’t this λόγος just part of something else?

Empathy is indeed the essence of The Numinous Way, and is a type of knowing, a means of apprehending Being and beings, and as I mentioned in An Overview of The Numinous Way of Life and elsewhere, empathy makes us aware of the numinous, and that:

” What is of particular importance about empathy is that it is only and ever personal. That is, empathy – like the numinous – only lives and thrives within an individual living being; it cannot be abstracted out of a living, individual, being.”

That is, empathy does not rely on nor need abstractions, or any ideation – and is never impersonal, and importantly provides us with a knowing of what is beyond both the linearity of causal Time and abstractions. Part of this knowing is how we, as individual, living, beings are a connexion to all Life; not separate from such Life.

Φύσις is, in a most important and quite fundamental way, manifest to us in that natural unfolding, that living being that is Nature, imbued as Nature is, as all living beings are, with ψυχή.

λόγος is manifest to us in both empathy and reason, with reason being both what has been termed logical reasoning (logic) and also empathy as ἁρμονίη, as that letting-be (wu-wei), that natural balance presenced within us, which uncovers what has been hidden by ideation, by abstractions. Thus, λόγος is how we can understand, come to know, Φύσις – and which understanding and knowing leads us to Αἰὼν, to an appreciation and understanding of the acausal, of acausal Time, beyond all causal abstractions.

When you write about the numinous, are you referring to Aesthetics – and if so, do you have a theory of aesthetics, and what part, if any, does empathy play in this?

What is Art? Technically, and correctly, Art, for The Numinous Way, is a nexion – a connexion between the causal and the acausal; a causal embodiment of some-thing acausal. What is embodied, and becomes a work of Art, is the numinous and some aspect of acausality, and empathy is one means for a human being to embody, to know, the numinous and acausality. By embody is meant to presence (acausality) in the causal.

Since empathy is only and ever personal, it logically follows that what might be called aesthetic judgement is personal as well, and that there cannot be any abstract, or formal, criteria or theory to judge or to reference what is often termed aesthetic value, beyond the obvious ones of numinosity and acausality. It is this combination of numinosity and acausality presenced in a particular causal manner that may be said to distinguish Art.

More prosaically, and less technically, Art is that works or those works, and/or that activity, that not only represents or expresses (or tries to express) in some way (gives some manufactured/created physical practical form or a collocation of forms to) the numinous, but which also has or presents to us (that is, presences in our causal, phenomenal world) some aspect of acausality.

Art can thereby be some conventional static formful and human-manufactured thing – such as a painting, a poem, a piece of music; or it can be a collocation of human-manufactured forms, such as a film, where images, moving and static, are combined with music and words and express a narrative or a story. By static is meant given a containing or limiting causal form or structure – for example, a conventional musical composition has a beginning and an end, and is scored to be played by some particular instrument or instruments and/or by the human voice (and so on), and is therefore possessed of a particular causal structure, and represents a particular causal presencing, and one which can thus be “faithfully interpreted/performed” according to what are considered to be the wishes of the composer, or given some new “interpretation” in the manner that, for example, the plays of Shakespeare often are, by some human being.

But Art can also, importantly, be some-thing living, changing, and not manufactured or directly presenced by us; that is, Art, a work of Art, can be the life, or some aspect of the life of, a human being, or some aspect of Nature that lives, that is presenced or becomes presenced to us, in a specific moment or moments of causal Time in a particular causal location (causal Space).

Thus, we might justifiably ask: what, and technically, is numinous? And what, technically, is acausality?

Technically, the numinous is what predisposes us not to commit ὕβρις – that is, what continues or maintains or manifests ἁρμονίη and thus καλλός; the natural balance – sans abstractions – that enables us to know and appreciate, and which uncovers, Φύσις and λόγος, and τὸ καλόν, the virtuous beauty known to us mortals as personal honour [2].

What is numinous is a presencing of acausal energy, in the causal – or ψυχή unfolding in the causal – and this is evident to us in what is beautiful (καλός), and what is imbued with the sublime, that is, with an appreciation of beyond-the-causal and thus beyond our own mortal lives: part of which, and anciently, would have been called the gods, or God, and/or to which we might assign the term Nature, as a living, changing, being, the matrix of Life, working on our planet, Earth, in a specific way and manifest in a diversity of living species.

Beauty – καλλός – is thus what or that which presences, embodies, or manifests, ἁρμονίη.

Technically, acausality [3] is that aspect of the Cosmos, of Reality, evident in acausal being – which we can apprehend in terms of an acausal Space and an acausal Time (an acausal continuum), as opposed to causal being, apprehended by us in terms of a causal Space and a causal Time (a causal continuum), with this causal continuum being the phenomenal world we know and experience by means of our physical senses.

in conclusion, it is worth repeating what I mentioned earlier, which is that all these references to Greek terms are just general, common, philosophical reference points – a somewhat academic philosophical framework for aspects of The Numinous Way – provided for those who might be interested and who might find such a conventional framework useful in understanding The Numinous Way, and possibly relating it to other philosophies.

David Myatt
2455335.917

Notes:

[1] In general, σοφός is to have, to possess, a certain skill, a certain craft: the craft of being able to distinguish between τὸ καλόν and φρόνημα; between what manifests the numen and what manifests barbarity, pride; between what predisposes us to act nobly, with honour, and what can cause us to commit ὕβρις. [ For φρόνημα cf. Euripides, Heraclid. 926: μήποτ᾽ ἐμοὶ φρόνημα ψυχά τ᾽ ἀκόρεστος εἴη ]

Thus, we can conceive of wisdom being a knowing of, a discovery of, what is necessary for ἁρμονίη – a knowing and appreciation, of, and what uncovers, Φύσις and λόγος, and τὸ καλόν.

[2] Personal honour – manifest in a Code of Honour – is a practical means of maintaining balance within the individual; a means whereby ὕβρις may be avoided. Thus the importance, in The Numinous Way, of both empathy and personal honour – refer, for instance, to An Overview of The Numinous Way of Life.

[3] See, for instance, Life and The Nature of the Acausal.

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Exegesis, and the Discovery of Wisdom

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One of the problems of conventional Ways [1] is their reliance upon certain texts (original or derivative), which texts come to be regarded as either sacred, or as possessing wisdom, or both. For, almost invariably, all such texts require interpretation [2] and/or come to used a source, if not the primarily and authoritative source, of information about, and a guide to, a particular Way. This reliance upon texts applies both to revealed Ways – such as Christianity and Islam, with Scripture (Christianity) and Quran and Ahadith (Islam) – and to non-revealed Ways, such as Buddhism and Hinduism [3].

What is common in respect of all Ways based upon or centred around certain texts, is that there invariably arises, over a certain period of causal Time, a particular attitude, both personal, and collective (among the community of adherents or believers), with this attitude being one of, if not veneration of the texts themselves, then of reliance upon them so that they are preferred over and above the πάθει μάθος of individuals: that is, preferred over and above the slow and the natural and the numinous (the living) accumulation of personal insight, understanding, and wisdom.

In addition, the interpretation of such texts – and/or the emergence or the writing of new texts concerning a particular Way – has, almost invariably, led to schism or schisms within a particular Way, with such schisms often being, at least in respect of revealed Ways – violent in nature, and leading to accusations of heresy.

These two features – the particular attitude of reliance upon and/or veneration of texts, and the emergence of schisms due to texts – may be said to represent the religious attitude itself. And it is this religious attitude, among individuals, and collectively – among a community or communities of adherents or believers – which is the fundamental problem of all conventional organized Ways.

However, in its genesis, a particular Way often does not possess nor require the cultivation of this religious attitude, this religious approach. Indeed, some Ways, in their genesis, may be quite opposed to such an attitude, such an approach, which attitude, which approach, often leads to the veneration, if not the deification, of the founder (known or perceived) of the Way.

One, particularly modern, manifestation of this religious attitude is in the desire, by adherents of a particular conventional Way, to find the results of modern science in such texts. Thus, there arises the desire to find, or to prove, that such texts prefigured, or indeed contain, certain scientific notions or certain recent rational explanations of natural phenomena, and this desire is often based upon a need to show or to somehow “prove” that the founder of a Way, or the supra-personal supreme Being of a Way, possessed a knowledge of such newly discovered matters.

Thus, and for instance, ancient texts are scoured to show that there was some ancient knowledge, and understanding, of such things as life existing elsewhere in the Cosmos; and/or there was some ancient knowledge and understanding of planets orbiting stars; and/or some ancient knowledge and understanding of what we now refer to as evolution, and the origin of diverse species; and so on.

This is, in effect, a re-interpretation of particular texts, where certain modern terms are mistakenly projected onto ancient or old words to give them a modern meaning, with this re-interpretation often being required by individuals, subsumed by the religious attitude, in order for those individuals to continue to believe in, or to continue to adhere to, what has become a particular Way reliant upon such texts.

The Problem of Reliance

Reliance on texts – revealed, venerated, or otherwise – is a fundamental problem because it not only removes wisdom from the personal experience of the individual, but it also tries to prescribe, to define, to restrict, the numinous.

Fundamentally, the religious attitude is itself a problem because it is a reliance on those abstractions that often derive or have been derived from an initial numinous experience, and which abstractions denude, undermine, or disrupt or conceal, the numinous itself.

For the truth is that wisdom is only – and only ever can be – personal, individual, and unique, and cannot be abstracted out from πάθει μάθος into some abstraction, religious or otherwise, or be found in some text, revealed or otherwise. That is, wisdom is a function of acausality – of acausal Time, of what is living – and not the result of some cause-and-effect; not the result of adhering to or striving to adhere to what someone else, somewhere at some moment in causal Time, has transcribed, tried to describe, or might even have revealed or dis-covered in some manner.

Thus, wisdom is natural, within each of us, nascent - a potentiality to be discovered by and through the immediacy of personal experience. All some texts may do – and should do – is point us or guide us toward this of necessity interior discovery, which occurs in its own way, in its very own species of a living Time.

Furthermore, such an individual discovering of wisdom, by means of πάθει μάθος, leads to a knowing, an understanding, of humility – that is, to a placing of ourselves into that natural Cosmic perspective which forms the basis of Reality itself [4]. And it is such a natural and indeed spontaneous humility – beyond words, terms, abstractions – which is the practical antithesis of the religious attitude itself, and indeed which is a necessary precursor for our own individual change and evolution.

Similarly, the numinous itself is presenced, and can be found, within each of us, and within those natural things, those living things, such as Nature and the Cosmos, a personal love, and empathy, which arise, and which have arisen or unfolded, in their own way according to their basal acausal nature, sans any and all causal abstractions.

David Myatt
2455304.093

Notes:

[1] By Way is meant a particular numinous Way of Life, distinguished from a particular philosophy (academic or otherwise) by virtue of the adherent of or believer in such a numinous Way finding therein a presencing of the numinous sufficient to make them aware of, or feel, or come to know, a distinction between the sacred and the profane.

I have used Way in preference to the more common and in my view, inaccurate and now often pejorative term, religion.

[2] By interpretation here is meant (1) commentaries (academic, theological, and otherwise); (2) explanations (critical, and otherwise); (3) translations; and – most importantly – (4) a seeking of the meaning of (a) both the text (in whole and in parts; and both esoteric and exoteric) and (b) of the words and terms used.

[3] In Buddhism, the primary texts are regarded as: (1) for Theravada Buddhism, the collections referred to as Tipitaka/Tripitaka; (2) for Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Tipitaka (in some cases, depending on interpretation) and the various Sutras, including the collection often referred to as The Perfection of Wisdom; (3) for Tibetan Buddhism, the various Tantric texts, plus some of the Tipitaka (in some cases, depending on interpretation) and some the Mahāyāna sutras (in some cases, depending on interpretation).

In Hinduism, there is the Bhagavad Gītā and the literature of the Vedas.

[4] See, for example, the essay Humility, Abstractions, and Belief.

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The Numinous Way

Recuyle – Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

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The Way of Pathei-Mathos

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Frequently Asked Questions About The Numinous Way

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Pre-Socratic Philosophy, The Numinous Way, and Aesthetics

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Exegesis, and the Discovery of Wisdom

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