The ancient philosophers and "anagogic power"?

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sciborg2

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« on: April 07, 2019, 05:07:55 pm »
Interesting excerpt from The Golden Chain- An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy

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The  fall  in  philosophical  insight,  as  well  as  the  mission  of  the  superior  souls  sent  down  to  recall  corrupted  souls  to  the  divine  abode, was exemplified in the Phaedrus of Plato. Thus even Socrates, who  described  philosophy  as  a  kind  of  divinely  inspired  madness  (mania),  was  referred  to  as  a  savior  by  Hermeias  of  Alexandria.  According  to  him,  Socrates  had  been  sent  down  to  the  world  of  becoming as a benefit to mankind and to turn souls—each in a dif­ferent way—to philosophy. Not only Pythagoras, Archytas, Socrates, and  Plato,  but  also  later  philosophers  such  as  Ammonius  Saccas,  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Iamblichus  and  Syrianus  were  “companions  of  the gods” (apadous theon andras) and belonged to the revelatory and soteriological tradition of philosophy, the main principles of which were  received  from  daemons  and  angels.  Such  men  were  ranked  with  divine  beings  and  called  “daemonic”  by  the  Pythagoreans.  They were members of the divine choir, free from subjection to the body and “instructed by the divine” (theodidaktos). Thus philosophy was  “sent  down”  along  with  those  who  preserved  intact  their  pure  vision of the gods in the heavenly procession (or the solar boat of Osiris-Ra,  to  express  the  matter  in  Egyptian  terms),  who  were  the  providential  agents  of  Eros  and  the  inspired  interpreters  of  the  noetic realities. They were the keepers of anagogic power, because dialectic and discursive thought were regarded as necessary aspects of  the  ascent.  According  to  Hermeias,  true  philosophers  were  divine-like  souls  who  derived  their  wisdom  from  the  immaterial  realm  and  then  translated  it  to  fallen  souls—those  who  ought  to  regrow their wings through the complete course of purification and recollection of their archetypal origins.

sciborg2

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« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2019, 05:14:43 pm »
Here's the Wikipedia entry for Anagoge:

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Anagoge (ἀναγωγή), sometimes spelled anagogy, is a Greek word suggesting a "climb" or "ascent" upwards. The anagogical is a method of mystical or spiritual interpretation of statements or events, especially scriptural exegesis, that detects allusions to the afterlife.[1]

Certain medieval theologians describe four methods of interpreting the scriptures: literal/historical, tropological, allegorical, and anagogical. Hugh of St. Victor, in De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris, distinguished anagoge, as a kind of allegory, from simple allegory.[2] He differentiated in the following way: in a simple allegory, an invisible action is (simply) signified or represented by a visible action; Anagoge is that "reasoning upwards" (sursum ductio), when, from the visible, the invisible action is disclosed or revealed.[3]

The four methods of interpretation point in four different directions: The literal/historical backwards to the past, the allegoric forwards to the future, the tropological downwards to the moral/human, and the anagogic upwards to the spiritual/heavenly.

Makes me wonder if there's more to Anagogis - I always wonder if there really is a Gnostic Daimos, given that it seems to me the Outside would fall beyond the remit of the precise description the Gnosis offers. Seems to me anything of the Outside (which is Inside in some sense iirc?) can only be grasped/leashed by way of analogy, in the way an engineer can master the external but it takes a poet to try and make a leap into the Abyss of the Internal toward the indirectly approachable but never achievable Zero-Person view....

Madness

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« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2019, 05:52:03 pm »
I do believe there is a ZTS quote (badly paraphrashing) that suggests that Nonmen experimented with harnessing 'agencies' with the Gnosis but then said "better not."
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sciborg2

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« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2019, 06:22:19 pm »
I do believe there is a ZTS quote (badly paraphrashing) that suggests that Nonmen experimented with harnessing 'agencies' with the Gnosis but then said "better not."

I know Bakker has mentioned the possibility of a Gnostic Daimos, but the way he said it - IIRC - was rather cagey. I can't help but suspect there was an attempt to use the Gnosis to leash entities in the Outside but it did not yield the expected results.

OTOH I could be off the mark and the Gnostic Gnosis is better in conjuration/summoning just as it (seemingly?) outclasses the other ways of magic in everything else. My only caveat is that Kellhus seems to have made no effort to develop a Gnostic Daimos, unless I missed something substantial in TUC?

edit: Also all the "head on a pole" stuff seemed to relying on analogy/symbolism rather than the geometries of the Gnosis...
« Last Edit: April 07, 2019, 09:14:18 pm by sciborg2 »

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« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2019, 06:49:04 pm »
Cagey. Lol.

Kellhus wasn't a part of the mass TTT/TUC Ciphrang summoning, right?

There a number of bullet points to discern there aren't there. This might collapse the answers as to whether Kellhus or a Nonman Quya could summon one of the names Hundred (and I am one of the rare assholes who can leak things but I am of FB's opinion that The Carathayan short opens up a lot of the world regarding TNG and Kellhus' "dead but not done" status.
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« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2019, 06:50:23 pm »
Whah whah. Editing on mobile is inconceivable.
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« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2019, 09:22:52 pm »
It's in the UC appendix under "inversions" is it not? The area of the daimos concerned with going to the outside.

outlawed by the thousand temples, eschewed by the Mandate, Inversions are the most feared discipline of the Daimos,especially within the Scarlett Spires.

Suggest it can be done but isn't done.

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« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2019, 09:49:27 pm »
The whole forum in mobile is inconceivable.
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« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2019, 10:22:24 pm »
I do believe there is a ZTS quote (badly paraphrashing) that suggests that Nonmen experimented with harnessing 'agencies' with the Gnosis but then said "better not."

I know Bakker has mentioned the possibility of a Gnostic Daimos, but the way he said it - IIRC - was rather cagey. I can't help but suspect there was an attempt to use the Gnosis to leash entities in the Outside but it did not yield the expected results.

OTOH I could be off the mark and the Gnostic Gnosis is better in conjuration/summoning just as it (seemingly?) outclasses the other ways of magic in everything else. My only caveat is that Kellhus seems to have made no effort to develop a Gnostic Daimos, unless I missed something substantial in TUC?

edit: Also all the "head on a pole" stuff seemed to relying on analogy/symbolism rather than the geometries of the Gnosis...
It could be that the theorems of the gnosis just can't accurately describe Godlings from the Outside, similar to how science can't really explain why kids love cinnamon crunch.

sciborg2

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« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2019, 11:47:40 pm »
I do believe there is a ZTS quote (badly paraphrashing) that suggests that Nonmen experimented with harnessing 'agencies' with the Gnosis but then said "better not."

I know Bakker has mentioned the possibility of a Gnostic Daimos, but the way he said it - IIRC - was rather cagey. I can't help but suspect there was an attempt to use the Gnosis to leash entities in the Outside but it did not yield the expected results.

OTOH I could be off the mark and the Gnostic Gnosis is better in conjuration/summoning just as it (seemingly?) outclasses the other ways of magic in everything else. My only caveat is that Kellhus seems to have made no effort to develop a Gnostic Daimos, unless I missed something substantial in TUC?

edit: Also all the "head on a pole" stuff seemed to relying on analogy/symbolism rather than the geometries of the Gnosis...
It could be that the theorems of the gnosis just can't accurately describe Godlings from the Outside, similar to how science can't really explain why kids love cinnamon crunch.

That's pretty much how I see it, but I am not sure that's what Bakker intended. We also know that birth control is made by witches - is that a magic the Gnosis could accomplish? I suspect not given that human knocked up a Nonmen chick...

This might be another case of interacting with the Outside via analogy since as per Akka each human consciousness is a penetration of the Outside into the "mundane" universe.

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« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2019, 11:56:35 am »
Well, if Kellhus figured it was easier to do with the actual Diamos, then likely it really was, since no one seems to ever have had more Gnostic power than him.

Perhaps it's a case that the Gnosis' "formal" power is exactly that, too formal to do much in the abstract realm of the Outside.  Perhaps even, Yatwer (and the rest of the 100) are not even "formal" entities, as we would imagine, for example, the Solitary God would be (was it to exist).
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« Reply #11 on: April 09, 2019, 02:30:53 pm »
So a gnostic equivalent ... Jiamos? (A->D and G->J are the same distance on the alphabet) ... would potentially only summon something without analogy - if it did work you'd be summoning the One God, or some actual real god (The Gods Themselves), as opposed to the analogous gods (god of birth, god of war, etc.)

One of the other conditions of possibility.

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« Reply #12 on: April 09, 2019, 03:04:41 pm »
So a gnostic equivalent ... Jiamos? (A->D and G->J are the same distance on the alphabet) ... would potentially only summon something without analogy - if it did work you'd be summoning the One God, or some actual real god (The Gods Themselves), as opposed to the analogous gods (god of birth, god of war, etc.)

Well, as much as I can't elucidate it properly, I do think there is a "difference" between the abstract notion of a vector and the abstract notion of a daemon.
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« Reply #13 on: April 09, 2019, 03:16:49 pm »
So Kellhus could only  summon Laplace's Demon?
One of the other conditions of possibility.

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« Reply #14 on: April 09, 2019, 03:58:21 pm »
So Kellhus could only  summon Laplace's Demon?

Well, if he could have, he probably would have, so...

(I actually don't think Laplace's Demon would know all that much in Earwa anyway, because the Outside is likely not corpuscular.)
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira