Pentagram 2016 Number 1

2016 number 1
pentagram
Lectorium Rosicrucianum
A call from the solar heart;

the Path, truth in your life!
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volume 38. 2016 number 1 pentagram
On the basis of DNA-samples scientists are now able to reconstruct the
detailed and very probable route that Homo sapiens have traversed on earth
in the course of thousands of centuries. By comparing the DNA of differ-
ent groups of people (genographics) they are not only able to ascertain
whether you are related to someone else, but also from which part of
the earth your distant ancestors originated. Our DNA indicates that about
200.000 years ago man started his wanderings over the face of the earth
out of Africa. First he migrated eastward and later towards the west, con-
tinuously adding characteristics to his DNA.
This same fascination for another destination forms the basis for the
search of the spiritual seeker: from where do I come? Where am I going?
And ultimately: who am I? Gradually something becomes clear to us, so
clear that it stares us in the face like a Medusa. What we as people do not
seem to be able to learn along social, moral, and altruistic lines, stands
here imperatively before us: We are one.
We share the same DNA, we have the same ancestor, Homo sapiens, who
initially was smaller, darker and much more at one with nature than the
car-driving mobile phone users that he is now. And not only do we share
the DNA: we share all particles that make up a human being - every atom
and every molecule. For these do not disintegrate but have been alive for
billions of years. They have experienced the beginning of life, have seen
the first fish creep onto land and the dinosaurs come and go. They have
covered an enormous journey in order to find expression here and now,
in you and me and will continue further on their travels through time and
space – or even beyond time and space? In that sense we are indeed dust,
but yet stardust!
Where do you come from? From everywhere. Whereto are you going? To
anywhere. Who are you? One grand expression of the One. That’s why
we are dust from dust, spirit from spirit, and full of aspiration. Once it
resounded: ‘Dust you are, and to dust you shall return’. But for these pres-
ent times we may also say: You are spirit, and you shall return to the Spirit!
The more reason for us to be humble, and no reason not to embrace the
grandeur of the creation.
cover
A local guide waves to a lost vehicle in the Sahara desert. Since 2005 the genographic project by National
Geographic, through DNA-analysis and with the help of numerous native communities, tries to find answers
to some fundamental questions for which mankind seeks an answer:
How did we come into existence? How exactly did we populate the earth? Where are we going?
Modern DNA-technology throws a new light on our collective past. Everyone is able to participate in this
real-time scientific project and in this way may learn more about himself than he had ever thought possible.
© genographic.nationalgeographic.com
1
Index
3 World Images [cover, 3, 7, 64]
4 The Salt of the Earth

Jan van Rijckenborgh
8 The Activity of the World Brotherhood

A word for the near future
14 Who am I? What am I? Where do I come from?

How did I grow into ‘me’?
A young Roscrucian’s search for her true self in a foreign
country
E.L. White
20 Report
International Young Rosicrucians Week 2015 – Renova
M. van der Velden
22 A thought from Hermes
28 Make a good start
30 Knowing what to do
34 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

W.K.C. Guthrie
52 Books
Paul Levy: Dispelling Wetiko - Breaking The Curse Of Evil
50 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket
61 Column
The blind spot
62 Symbol
Circle and point
2 Index
World images
The call goes out to the innumerable souls, microcosms - the fiery nuclei of the one Spirit,
that realize the infinite universe out of the All-One light
On 12 June 2015 in Gorky Park in Moscow, an exhibition opened called ‘The Theory of Infinity,’ which concurred
with the relocation opening of ‘Garage’ a museum designed by Rem Koolhaas, a Dutch architect, actor and writer.
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama installed an endless-mirror room with thousands of pulsating lights that immerse the
visitor in a unique psychological and sensorial experience as if he were met by the light of a millions souls.
© www.spletnik.ru/buzz/59771-novoe-zdanie-muzeya-garazh-chto-zhdet-posetiteley.html
3
The lucid thinking of Jan van Rijckenborgh and Catharose de Petri and their
great love for humanity brought them together to found a modern school for the
development of consciousness, the Lectorium Rosicrucianum. They did so in the
firm conviction that the elimination of the lack of knowledge about the back-
ground of human existence is a key factor in alleviating the worlds’ suffering.
Sebastiáo Saldago, The Salt of the Earth. Still from the movie of that name from Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribero Saldago, 2014

The Salt of the Earth
Salt is an indispensable ingredient anywhere without which life

is unthinkable. As an analogy we may also regard the mystic salt
as a basic element of spiritual alchemy, essential for the alchemi-
cal wedding of Christian Rosycross.
M
ystic salt is present in rendering it useless to mankind and so
every human being and may disappear from the divine original From the very beginning until his
its degree of efficacy plan. last conferences, J. van Rijcken-
The whole universe tells and teaches borgh has always placed the
determines his spiritual
Alchemical Wedding of Christian
power. The working of us that “God is Light”. This is demon-
Rosycross (1459) in the center
this salt either unifies or dissolves various strated in all aspects of life. It makes us
of attention of his listeners and
values or forces that in the course of the conscious that we, creatures in his image
he gave them the keys to unlock
process have been revealed as useful or and likeness, are carriers of the Light. In
the symbolism in this work of the
superfluous. Besides, it makes it possible the same way that the Logos thrusts the classic Rosycross.
for a human being to continue his path solar system in the cosmos we, in the
of cosmic evolution in space and time. quality of authentic bearers of the Light,
Suffering and purification of life brought may discern our task and be a light to the
about by this mystic salt interact to give world. The salt of the earth and also the Light in
birth to the soul consciousness, the soul the world!
body of the initiates, the Christian gold- This is not an assignment for the “I” but
en vesture that envelops those advancing for the “we”. The mystical salt of which
towards the wedding with the objective you are the treasurer must be put at the
to marry with the light of the divine service of “we”, that is the world. If
spirit in them. In this way, the first phase you have acquired soul power you must
of the alchemical wedding is fulfilled. distribute it in the world around you. In
This mystical salt is often latent in the this way the mysterious mystical salt will
human being. Although the call has be multiplied by virtue of its fabulous
resonated for a long time throughout qualities. The more you give, the more
the world, it has not so far been able to capable of giving will you be and the
awaken the majority of humanity. There- more you will aspire to do so under the
fore, mystic salt may lose its flavor, thus impulse of the heart.
5
You can share the light that is in you, your divine spirit, with “we”,
that is to say, with all human beings. This task is not given to the “I”,
but to the “we”. You will never know rest until this light has penetrated
the darkest places.
That is the good work that prevails! The only work that answers to a
divine order and demands the real sacrifice: be the salt of the earth and
the light of the world. And, following the example of Christ, you will
never rest until the whole human life wave has reached its goal.
This proposal is full of implications, which confront us with the spe-
cific attitude explained to us in the Sermon on the Mount, which hu-
manity has not yet assimilated as we see it daily confirmed around us.
It is as if we are to climb a mountain, which may first give us great
hesitation because Christ demands a total change of both human being
and society.
If we would follow the directions of the

Sermon on the Mount even minimally
it would effect a radical change
The serious seeker will understand that the key point to achieve some-
thing that is placed before him is not to talk about it but to act upon it.
To do something adequately one needs first to know about it and then
to understand the task.
So, when we are asked to be the salt of the earth as well as the light
of the world, this means that there is a delineated path in Christ that
needs to be walked. If we understood the intentions of Christ even Waving goodbye to the Teton
Mountan Range at sunset near
slightly, the result would be significant on a world scale. If we applied Jackson Lake Lodge (Wyoming,
the Sermon on the Mount even on a minimal scale it would cause a USA) © Dong Nan Xi Bei
radical change not only in our inner being but also around us to the
point that we would believe to have entered the kingdom of heaven
and this would be unquestionable to every mortal and evident to the
whole of humanity.

World images
Life from the earth or life from the solar body?

The solar life of course!
7
The Activity of the World
A WORD FOR THE NEAR FUTURE
W
‘What is happening at this moment? The state of the world and humanity presents
an image that is far from reassuring,’ Van Rijckenborgh declared already many years
ago. Continuing: ‘One would lose courage observing it’.
Since then, many things have happened which were indeed very discouraging. True
untainted people of integrity are rare in this world and the majority do not pay them
any attention or give them any credit because their psychic state does not allow it.
Humanity has reached the lowest point of its voyage through matter. Art, science and
religion as we have known them thus far, have lost their value as a valid sources of help
or perspectives of life. What perspectives then, are actually presented to mankind?
We are helplessly and hopelessly back against a wall and yet are we at the same time
invited to self-realization; a task for which we may feel we have not at all been pre-
pared. But the question must still be answered: what perspectives remain for man?
How may he overcome the obstacles that limit him both inwardly and from the
outside?
It is exactly in this situation of general helplessness that a new possibility comes up

thanks to the work of the Sevenfold World Brotherhood.
Let us consider once again the important facts from an esoteric-gnostic point of view.
To begin, we need to remember that, as J. van Rijckenborgh has explained, the lunar
forces have been completely withdrawn. These forces, the Lunar Angels, belong to
a previous live wave, which has gone ahead on the path of development but which
does not belong to the human life wave. They accompanied humanity until its dark-

Brotherhood
‘Das Meer und der Liebes Wellen’ (The sea and the waves of love). An image of the classical drama of Hero who swum every night across
the Hellespont in order to be with his beloved Leander. Anselm Kiefer, 2011
9
Boulder, Colorado in the morning January 6, 2015. © Tom Yulsman
New energies which deeply touch all humanity

provoke a deep reaction in everyone

est times, to the nadir of matter, in which we find ourselves today. Therefore, the
Sevenfold World Brotherhood of whom the Spiritual School of the Golden Rosycross
is an extension has taken new initiatives for the upcoming future because a period
of transition has truly begun.
This period is characterized by great confusion, a multiplicity of disasters and cata-
clysms. The School has elucidated this during the past years so that we might under-
stand what was coming. Summing up: we are still on the wrong spiral of develop-
ment. We care very little about the cosmic order, which calls for context, connection,
kindness and diligence in all things and its important points are ignored and even
denied. The result is the collapse of the social, economic, scientific and religious
order, together with other factors that can prevent a disintegration of society. The
present poverty of spirit clearly goes hand-in-hand with all this.
In the ‘memory of nature’ the first-hand experience that humanity not only repre-
sents a threat to the individual but also to the planet as a whole, has never before
been experienced quite so directly. And through the modern media everyone is both
a witness and a player on this field. What then is your answer when facing this sce-
nario?
May a deep understanding guide us here!

See what the state of the world has to tell you. There is no political solution for it but
only one for you, yourself, undertaken by yourself. Are you a judging person, afraid
of what may happen to you and to your fine western security? Or are you willing to
lend a helping hand? For you must experience it daily: all the evil subtleties, the lies,
the slyness that have become commonplace in the interchange among individuals as
well as among nations? In the light of the upcoming developments we proclaim that
all the deceptions that you are confronted with will soon belong to the past, because
everyone will find out what their true face is.
The initiative of the World Brotherhood is about: bringing forth the force of light
that lies within you and making this positive force an active one. You will then re-
spond to a powerful impulse of spiritual inspiration in the form of an atmospheric
vibration that everyone, all humans of all races, will feel and experience.
All brotherhoods and thus also our Rosicrucian Foundation, respond to it and con-
tribute each in their own way. Not ostentatiously, with powerful media campaigns,
but with initiatives emanating from an inner attitude and an orientation towards the
intense and imminent outpouring of a radiation of electromagnetic forces.
New energies that deeply touch all humanity provoke a deep reaction in everyone.
Every human being will be confronted with himself and will thus have the possibil-
ity and the power to intervene in his own situation. It is akin to what the Spiritual
School calls: the Spirit-Soul state.
This dimensional shift and change have been announced in our School and in many
other groups that have been incorporated into the work of the World Brotherhood
for many years. The new etheric reality unfolds through the upper layers of the earth
and of our own inner atmosphere and chases the darkness before it. This is very
manifest within those contra groups that work ever more openly and cynically for
11
Falsehood and deceit in any aspect will
lose their fascination
their own benefit and own personal interests because they are weakened by fear,
hate, self-interest and all manner of destructive actions.
A change of mentality of its members, who are also our brothers, is only possible by
a great cosmic current of impersonal love sustained by thousands and thousands of
open hearts of human beings like us.
In no way will this be the end of the world. What is happening today can be defined
as the establishment of new starting points written in the ether, in harmony with
the great law of love, with the cohesion of life. Millions of hearts envision it, feel it
and are oriented towards it. Inwardly, they separate the veils from the solar vibra-
tions and the terrestrial vibrations. Even though there may be a warming up of the
planet, a climate change and possibly natural catastrophes. It is the Spirit, beginning
with the Universal Logos and the Will of the Father, who maintains in balance these
great magnetic changes within the terrestrial system. This is not done to serve our
poor wobbly personalities but to serve the entire cosmic development in which our
human life wave has its place.
A change in consciousness is forthcoming. It approaches in response to a cosmic

necessity and also, and above all, it is brought up by the awakening of the authentic
spiritual potential of altruistic love, reflecting the primordial image of the true hu-
man spirit. In this love, we shall perceive reality in a very different way.
The new aurora heralds a new dimension. Your heart is receptive to it and your
intelligence can grasp the superior reason for it. With your sympathetic and willing
actions you will contribute to introduce it in the world.
There was a time when a human being was linked to the divine primordial image of
the truly celestial microcosm. The fullness of this image is now far from us. How-
ever, a memory, as a reflection in a mirror, slumbers in each human being in each
heart, which wants to beat in the right way – for others.
This image of which we speak will become visible, as a certainty, as a consequence
of the great cosmic initiative. Humanity will have a first-hand experience it to the
point of penetrating the power of the original matrix, which we call the divine plan
for the world and humanity. Perhaps the positive disposition toward the majority of
ordinary people to host large numbers of refugee coming from the Middle East may
be a first reaction to this hopeful experience, despite the incongruous, fearful and
inefficient official politics? Given the new forces or etheric values coming to us be-
cause of the needs of our times, we understand, with a sigh of relief, that our work
and our mission come from a deeper order: “Ensure the birth of the new soul “. At
the same time, we can clearly see which consequences it would have if we would
reject this mission.

We refer to one of the ways to open wide the door to the new life. Not only will we
see how the psychic aspect of the individual can thus be straightened out as much as
is still possible, but also that this experience and the powerful activities of the light
will cause within him an impressive purification. This will affect not only all human
beings but also all the spheres of life
Then a true social transformation can be instigated – a grandiose and impressive
new development that will follow seven paths. Everyone may participate, all races
and all locations where people aspire to it. No aspect of our society will be un-
touched by the blissful influences of this revolution. It will be as if our present di-
mension dissolves and disappears. The original image of the human being, preserved
in its entire purity in the highest spheres of life, will envelop you as the Spirit-Soul.
It will grow in perception and discernment each day. Falsehood and deceit in any
aspect will lose their fascination.
It is not difficult to imagine what this implies in terms of a changed morality and
in the objectives of science. This is a wide perspective; a change in the depth of
consciousness could provoke a formidable global revolution. Once in a while, the
Spiritual School enlarges on these changes, be it in moderate terms. In this process
we will all be more or less re-educated starting out from true departure points.
In this way the new cosmic initiative that we discussed here will call up before our
eyes a progressive perspective – different and harmonious. Each of us is called to
participate in the development of the great divine plan for humanity and the world;
in this way our own heart will encourage us towards it, our intelligence will make
us understand it and our actions will show it.
This way Truth and a pure Reality will be manifested. The masks and illusions will be
left without impact and humanity will see how harmonious structural changes take
effect. When everyone is psychically led to new paths and when it will be abundant-
ly clear to all what the pure image of true man is capable of, then the racial body
will lose its density. The effects of the forces of gravity will change - do our young
people not already practise this in their recreational pastime? - and society will final-
ly show a totally new face.
Together with all the other ones who know of this, we will collaborate in self-sur-
render with the World Brotherhood. For the obvious reason that in the near future
the attitude expected of us will be that of a true serving love. Therefore all who
understand this call will make ready and dedicate themselves to the great work for
a humanity that is in a desperate search for living examples - archetypes of the
heavenly man. This requires a great number of contributors with an adequate under-
standing.
Article by the editors of Pentagram. See

also J. van Rijckenborgh, ‘Alchemical
Wedding’, part II, Afterword II
13
A YOUNG ROSICRUCIAN’S SEARCH FOR HER TRUE SELF IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY
Who am I? What am I?
Where do I come from?
How did I grow into ‘me’?
The Pinnacles, Nambung National Parc, near Cervantes, WA, Australia
14 Who am I? What am I? Where do I come from? How did I grow into ‘me’?
E.L. WHITE
I
am entering an entirely new place. Australia. People are so differ-
ent here. I have never been so self-conscious as at this moment.
Everybody here knows each other, except for me. I don’t know
anyone. They look at me, not disapprovingly but curiously. I have
to be at my best behaviour and make a good impression. I am
starting to ponder who I actually am; what I have experienced already.
And why would I deserve their recognition? I could of course just pre-
tend that nobody scrutinizes me. But I know they do, just as I do them.
They probably try to guess my accent. Canadian? Irish? Ah, Dutch! At
once I am seen as ‘Dutch’. In the Netherlands I have never been seen
as Dutch. The Dutch in the Netherlands actually don’t have that much
in common: there are so many different religions, differences in skin
colour, traditions and dialect. One feels Dutch only at the world soccer
tournament or when travelling to another country. And when travelling
further than France, Italy or Turkey being Dutch suddenly changes into
being ‘European’.
But then, what is ‘Europe’ with its variety in cultures, history, and lan-
guages. Europe, where everything began, or at least we think so. We?
Who is ‘we’? We, the Dutch people? We as Europeans? We women? We
twenty-year-olds? We Sagitarius signs of the zodiac? We vegetarians?
So many identities. There is no‚ ‘we’ and no ‘they’. If everyone would
only understand this, the world would be a better place. Better than it
already is. But I am still feeling singled out from all the people that are
scrutinizing me in this room. They were born here and think less highly
of the place where I come from. We as Europeans are convinced that we
brought civilization to the world. For this reason we are, and probably
rightly so, disliked in some other parts of the world.
When introducing myself, I can sense some contempt, even if it is only

very slight. I am feeling like a stranger. It is not so much the feeling of
15
Australia focuses on creating
an national Australian identity.
This is a very difficultundertaking
Youths during an outdoor ‘Camp Doog’festival, WA, Austalia
being ashamed of my nationality, but I ern takeover of this island only began
am a minority here and therefore feel some 200 years ago. Until then the his-
quite vulnerable. tory of our ancestors was more or less
In this situation I realize that back similar - for them and for me.
home, when within my comfort zone, I
haven’t always been open minded my- This is my chance to direct attention
self nor welcoming in my thoughts and away from me. And so I ask someone
actions either, but this is a thing of the about his origin. ‘I’m 100% Aussie,
past and there is nothing I can change mate’ is the answer. With some uneas-
about that now. iness I look up at him. Doesn’t he see
By the way, didn’t everyone in this room that I am a woman and not a mate?
originally come from Europe? The west- There is no time to correct him. The
answer is repeated. Then I ask him if
his ancestors were aborigines. No, not
that. But in Australia, European roots
are preferably not mentioned. Why not?
Because the first English settlers were
prisoners? No, because the European
identity does not really mesh with the
Australian.
While European countries move to-
wards each other and emphasize the
similarities between them,
Australia focuses on creating a national
Australian identity. This is a difficult un-
dertaking because in reality your ‘typical
Australian’ does not exist, the same as
there is not really a ‘European’.
The introduction of the concept of a
Europe-wide nationalism requires the
individual countries to overcome their
cultural borders and differences in pol-
itics. For this they were able to draw on
centuries-old traditions and culture and
emphasize those that promoted the uni-
ty of people.
The desire for unity is palpable on the
Australian continent. The development of
an identity is in full swing, although it is
not an easy undertaking. Australians do
not want to be ‘deportees’ or ‘convicts’
of Europe but there are no other old
traditions and cultures to draw from.
The Australians of today look at only
200 years of development of a collective
culture.
17
They want to differentiate themselves philosophers or the wisdom of the East. populated continent only
from their European history and want Therefore they look somewhere else. when you are healthy, under
to show that they form a part of the Simplicity and easiness are rated very 30 and from a western in-
English-speaking world like the USA highly and put above the complexity dustrial country. A Coca-Cola
and New Zealand. But does this ap- of the human being. Everything is ‘too culture with low tolerance.
proach support the forming of an iden- easy, mate.’ A highly praised mentality
tity? Actually it does. The ‘Australian (although mostly by them-
dream’ replaces the ‘American dream’. The tolerance of Australians is high- selves) that says: ‘I’ m not a
Australia is the ‘country of unlimited ly praised, although mostly only by racist, but most Aboriginals
opportunities’. It is the country of iron- themselves.Everyone is welcomed and are criminals’.
ore and mines; the country of self-made loved but only as long he/she can put This reminds me of a quote
millionaires; there is no blue blood, no the right check marks on his/her visa by Voltaire: ‘It is forbidden to
aristocracy or nobility. The rich are bro- application. kill; therefore all murderers
kers, mine owners, casino bosses. Just as your suitcases cannot exceed the are punished unless they kill
Australians cannot refer to the great allowed measurements when boarding in large numbers and to the
minds of the Renaissance, to timeless the plane, so you can enter the sparsely sound of trumpets.’
The lonely tree in the dunes near Noverosa, Doornspijk, NL
All of a sudden I remeber Noverosa.
I focus on my inner being
Trumpets resound on this continent because I can’t see it. I close my eyes
every year on the day when the English in desperation. All of a sudden I re-
first arrived here with their fleet. The member Noverosa. I focus on my inner
fact that on that very day an epoch of being. I can hear the temple songs and
exploitation and genocide on aborigines under my feet I can feel the pebbles of
began is fully ignored. Just to keep mat- the path leading to the temple. (‘Don’t
ters simple: ‘Don’t we all live peacefully run!’).
together now? The one in a mansion,
the other in a shack, but didn’t everyone There is the fragrance of the rose garden
have the same opportunities? That’s how and suddenly I become aware that sim-
it is – you can’t change it!’ plicity isn’t so strange after all when I
The atmosphere in the room has think of the description of the universal
changed. I had assumed to find consent power, a simple spark, born of a great
for my ideas about racial equality, gen- fire, present in every human heart.
der equality or homosexual marriage. The panic fades when I realize that we
But in stead it triggered a heated discus- all have the same origin and everyone
sion in which I had to defend my ideas. knows it with certainty from deep with-
in. The quest for unity is a shared histo-
I realize that until now I hardly ever had ry. It is everyone’s search.
to defend my opinions and that I took Now I can feel it again. I know again
this for granted. I am overcome with a who I truly am - what my true identity
feeling of sadness and apprehension. I is. I know again where I come from.
am afraid that I will forget where I am This is a new chance. I did not even
coming from or why I am ashamed and know that I had a need for it. Although I
I look away because I am tired of it and am on the other side of the world I tru-
don’t want to start again to explain an- ly feel connected and finally am at home
other time to the taxi-driver that skin again. It doesn’t matter where I am.
colour does not affect the worthiness of
a person.
I feel like withdrawing from all these
new situations back into my comfort
zone and go and search for like-minded
people. I catch myself thinking: they are
different!
Not to judge others has never been such
a challenge, because I am still striving
to see the light, the power of civiliza-
tion in the form of the love in people
around you. I end up in a bit of a panic,
19
International Young Rosicrucians Week –
Each summer hundreds Arriving world and we answer it. It is ing to the young Rosicrucians’
of young Rosicrucians There are so many opportuni- a feeling, an inner urge that week or somewhere else. In
between the ages of 18 ties available each summer to tells us that we just have to such a case it is not so obvious
– 30 work at a confer- the participants and there- go to the young Rosicrucians’ and it becomes necessary to
ence centre for a whole fore as many thoughts about week. And we do go. There is make a conscious choice. If
week, last year at Renova going or not going to a young no need to unravel this feeling for a moment you stop and
in the Netherlands. As Rosicrucians’ working week. in detail with our head (Where think of the School and of
someone said: “A young Yes, there is resistance, but does it come from? What preceding summer weeks then
Rosicrucians’ week is like there is also a call. Do you does it mean? What reasons a longing will emerge and the
a building-construction: make this choice with your do I have to go?). It is actually inner certainty that uncon-
“Together we will build head or with your heart? impossible to describe the call sciously the decision to go has
a new construction with It might be a matter of course in words. already been made.
each other”. that you go to this work- “The call does not depend on
ing week. There are even space or time” as one young
young people who have Rosicrucian said. “I have
never skipped a single week. travelled for 14 hours in order
A matter of course doesn’t to get to Renova, but I don’t
automatically mean that there mind, I had to go. If I had to
is no need to make a choice, travel for 24 or 34 hours, I
only that the choice is not that would have still gone”.
difficult. In the words of a one However, sometimes there
young person: “There was an certainly is some doubt - a
opportunity, but not a choice. little voice whispering that you
I had to go”. maybe don’t want to go. Or
A call resounds through the there is a choice between go-
20 Inhoud
Report
Report
– August 9-16, 2015 at Renova
Nowadays young people live share convictions and ideas. is it just a matter of turning a There is a big chance that you
their life consciously and they Here I am not strange; here I knob? Whatever the answers have found answers to some
make conscious choices. They am at home.” are, it cannot be denied that a questions, new strength and
also know when to listen to There is a connectedness in conference has a tremendous energy, motivation to change,
their inner voice that says the group because the young force and impact that helps joy, light, and much more.
“go”, and abstain from trying pupils have something in com- you to break with the old and The atmosphere of the week
to analyse that voice. mon. Even if you feel lonely construct the new. will remain within you and
within the group and it is you will notice that your heart
Being hard for you to step towards Leaving feels lighter and you can cope
What makes a young pupils someone else for a talk - nev- Far too quickly the conference with things more easily.
working week so special? ertheless, you still are part of is over and everybody says Together, the work at the
What does it mean to young the group. goodbye to each other and to new construction has been
people? Together you work, both in the week, but it’s not a real realised, a work much larger
“Here, during a working a physical and in a mental/ farewell. You take the mem- than Renova; in fact all over
week, being with these spiritual sense. Things are ories with you and carry your the world people work at
people, I can express my ideas built up, torn down, trans- friends in your heart wherever this construction, stone after
and thoughts,” said one of posed and broken off. There you go. And you know that stone, day after day, for as
the young pupils. “In my daily is a unique chance to break you will see each other again, long as necessary until the
life this is impossible. In my out of certain patterns and whether soon or in a year’s goal is reached.
daily life I am different and my habits that prevent you from time.
thoughts are strange. This cre- reaching out to what you No, you certainly do not leave
ates loneliness because I am desire. How do you liberate empty-handed: you take
different. People that seemed yourself from these connec- home with you the result of a
to be friends have left. But tions? Are these connections week of (spiritual) work, the
here people are like me. We actually inside your head and common goal of the week.
Photos Cedric Veldhuis, Rumon Bruins
21
22 Inhoud
A thought from Hermes
In ancient times Hermes was called ‘prince
of Light’. Esoteric thinkers state that he ar-
rived in Egypt around 10,350 BC. From an
astrological standpoint his arrival marks
the age of Leo, the Lion. This period from
10,500 until 8,000 BC is often called the
golden age because, as the legends have it,
‘man walked with the gods’.
Sunset, Essouira, Maroc © Frank Fabrice, 2011
23
T
hat is why, they say, that the Consciousness of Osiris himself. by the learned poets and
Sphinx, which was built in One of the names the Greeks had for alchemists of Arabia Felix,
this era, was sculpted in the Trismegistos was Hermes Psycho- Blessed Arabia as the Near
image of a lion. There are pompos, Guide of souls, a name taken East region was termed in
present-day archaeologists directly from the Egyptian system of the Middle Ages.
who state that its age is actually far old- thought. And we certainly have to
er than was first supposed and that the As soon as a human being falls asleep or thank the workers in the
sculpture was formerly adorned with a dies, Hermes with his two companions Middle Ages, now called the
lion’s head, receiving its pharaoh head Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death) Dark Ages though it was a
only in later times. accompanies him to those areas where time in which the spiritual
The sculpture is aligned precisely to the he may best continue his development. Light still did ascend to the
east, the place where the sun comes up. For there is never a standstill and all spheres of the Spirit of Life.
But even more remarkable is the fact things must follow the cosmic process- This ascending flow con-
that in those times this direction was es. Hermes accompanies what is divine tinued in many places, both
exactly aligned with the place in the fir- to the Elysium Fields because one who small and large, by means
mament where the zodiacal sign of Leo has contributed to the Light on earth of seekers devoted to the
appeared at night. will rightfully be accepted there in the spiritual gold that had been
Through the ages people have attributed abode of Phoebus Apollo, the realm of lost in man.
various functions to this prince of Light, the sun.
all of them having to do with transmis- Hermes is the connector. His dwelling In the Renaissance period
sion, connecting. place is ‘the abode of the blessed in the Hermes was awakened once
To the Egyptians in the era of the phar- clear sunlight’ as Homer expresses it po- again when Ficino and his
aohs he represented Thoth, the ibis god. etically. ‘It is the palace of Cronus’ says Academia Platonica redis-
Thoth was the neter (the Power) who the Greek poet Pindar, ’the isles of time covered the Greek-hermetic
accompanied the deceased to the throne eternal where the liberated original text of the Corpus Hermetica
of Osiris. There it was revealed to the sons of God live, as well as all the he- following the sack of Con-
deceased how his life was judged and roes whose names are immortal. These stantinople in 1453. They
it was there that his soul was placed on islands are far distanced from gods thought that the writings
the famed scales. and men’ continues the poet. ‘There is were older than Plato and
His heart was weighed against the always a cool breeze and the trees are Pythagoras – which is correct
weight of a feather – the feather of adorned with beautiful golden flowers in a sense for they go back to
Ma’at – the cosmic order, the true equi- that ornament those who listen to the very ancient wisdom – and
librium. words of truth, goodness and righteous- so Hermes gained in impor-
It could not be too heavy for that would ness that are spoken there.’ tance and was revered with
show that the soul had dived too deeply Hermetic workers in later eras safe- the same veneration as were
into the sea of matter. On the other guarded the ancient hermetic formulae Moses and Jesus. The 14th
hand it could not be too light for this of the Tabula Smaragdina. With wisdom and 15 th centuries then
proved that this man or woman had not transferred from teacher to pupil they became the era of Hermes
properly fulfilled his tasks on earth. kept up the practise ‘to bring the above for he made a glorious
Only if the scales were in good balance in harmony with the below’. The gnos- comeback though he lost his
was this soul allowed to fight in the tics of Alexandria and Saïs translated ‘the status again in the 17th and
phalanx of Horus, to work the heav- many books of Hermes’ into the Greek 18th centuries when rational
enly fields of Jalu and later, when the mode of thinking and phraseology and illuminative thinking
Light was sufficiently strong in him, to and thus they have come to us, be it in gained momentum. It is only
take his place aboard the bark of Isis to fragments. in the esoteric thinking of
undertake the journey to the Fields of As well, excerpts had been preserved the Rosicrucians, the latter
24 Inhoud
A thought from Hermes
day alchemists and the freemasons that in life to that domain and strive for the in darkness, will once more
there is a more constant appreciation right understanding of this wisdom. remember the spirit and the
for him because the spiritual approach Now Hermes transforms into the Light to which it belongs.
of these systems is based entirely on his thinker who turns everything around. For the soul enters the body
philosophy. His thinking deals with the coherence under coercion – the spirit
And now, in our time, we see that between God, cosmos and man and enters the soul by choice.
his thinking is used even in quantum between body, soul and spirit. Hermes When the soul is outside the
theories, concerning dark energy and does not say that they are the same. body it has neither quality
dark matter universes. Though it looks Oh no, they are clearly different for nor quantity. It only receives
like Hermes has long been sleeping, his he states: “Our body is an instrument. these in the body though as
followers through the ages have kept his It is moreover a quality of the soul.” something of lesser impor-
exalted teachings very much alive. This needs some thought. What does he tance. It is then also exposed
Hermes, messenger between gods and mean exactly? He explains it by contin- to the values of good and
humans, dwelled with his wisdom in uing: “Just as the body is formed in a bad for this is what dense
the orbit of the sun in a sphere barely wondrous manner in the womb, thus is matter brings about. (He
detectable by the human spirit. Half the soul formed in the body.” But note, means that our earthbound
believing though fully experiencing, says Hermes: “The body comes from existence brings this about.)
wrapped in the cloak of his majesty, he the darkness of the womb into the light This system ensures that
sees the gods who disguise themselves but the soul comes in the darkness of the soul will learn to make
in order to guide man to their realm! the body out of the Light. The spirit is choices. But let us first look
And there, just past the horizon where present in the soul - nature is present in at this coercion. What does
the gods deign to expose some glimpses the body. The spirit is the creator of the he mean by it? We may bet-
of their exalted footsteps, the hermetic soul and the soul creates the body.” ter understand this if we fol-
wisdom is still accessible to those who And he continues: “The whole purpose low Hermes’ words further
yearn in all honesty to wend their way of life is that the soul, now in a body when he explains:
25
”Seven stars, all different in their orbit,
swirl round the threshold of Mount
Olympus and with them, infinite time Seven stars, all different in
advances everlastingly.” He then names
the seven known planets at that time. theis orbit, swirl round the
The Moon, shining in the night - fearful
Cronus (Saturn) – the gentle Sun - the threshold of Mount Olympus
goddess of Paphos (Aphrodite or Venus)
26 Inhoud
of the bridal bed – brave Ares – Hermes and Mercury. And consequently we find the soul cannot live on if it
of the fast wings - and Zeus, eldest and within ourselves, conceived through the leaves the body in an imper-
the source from which nature origi- Life Spirit, tears, laughter, anger, procre- fect state.
nates. ation, intelligence, sleep and longing. Perfectness for the soul is to
They are the Presences to whom the The tears are from Cronus (Saturn), have full knowledge of what
lineage of man has been entrusted and procreation is from Jupiter, communi- exists in all eternity. In the
thus we find within ourselves also the cation from Mercury, anger from Mars, same manner as you will
Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Saturn, Sun sleep from the Moon, longing from the treat the soul when it inhab-
goddess of Kythera, Aphrodite or Venus, its your body, so the soul
and the laughter derives from the Sun will treat you once it has left
for thanks to him rejoice all sensible your body!”
mortals as well as the infinite cosmos.“ Many philosophers through
the ages are agreed on this
This concept was universally accepted conclusion: an essential
in those times. The planets gave us our quality of man is his abili-
communal human qualities and in that ty to choose. This is due to
sense every human was a microcosm, his desire to be good, to do
for people did not see themselves as well, and to enter fully in
separate individuals as much as we do that which is Exalted, Good,
in our time. and True. This he has learned
A person’s characteristics were given on earth through his bodily
him by the gods and he was therefore existence, due to the gifts
governed and directed by them and in of the gods within his soul
this manner went through his experi- and thanks to the eternal
ences in life. immortal Spirit who thinks
According to the hermetic philosophers in its vast Depth and Silence,
all the planets exerted their influence pondering and reflecting,
on his life. They maintained that the observing and perceiving,
world, the cosmos, was God’s body and in eternity creating
and man was an image of that body on because it is eternal Joy. Thus
a small scale since the soul is coerced Hermes taught.
into the body. And so the soul gathers
experience and learns to be good and
to yearn for the ‘Only Good’ which is:
to be perfect. That is the reason for our
existence and the goal for every human
being. In Hermes’ own words: “As the
body leaves the mother’s womb when
it has outgrown it so the soul will leave
the body when it has grown to perfec-
tion. For as the baby cannot live outside
the mother if it is not yet full-grown so
Sunset at 348 km altitude above the Pacif-

ic Ocean. Photo taken from the Interna-
tional Space Station
27
Make a good start
28 Inhoud
L
ife offers many possibilities for a good
beginning. For everyone - every day
- at every hour. A beginning is most-
ly small and seems to be trivial and
even insignificant. But in reality each
beginning is one of the most important events
in our lives. The world of matter shows us that
everything begins at a small scale.
A majestic river is at first a small brook that could
easily be crossed by a grasshopper.
The greatest flood starts with a single raindrop.
The powerful oak tree that survived a thousand
winter storms was once a small seedling.
And let us keep in mind that also in the invis-
ible world the greatest things arise from small
beginnings. An inspiration can be the start for
a wonderful invention or a timeless work of
art. Continuous pure thinking can bring about
a worldwide regenerative power. But there are
good as well as bad beginnings and both have
their consequences.
By a thorough consideration of our task we may
avoid an ill-fated beginning and have a positive
start. Thus we escape possible negative develop-
ments and enjoy good results. Loving, benevolent
and pure thoughts are a good beginning and lead
to wonderful results. This truth is very simple,
clear and profound but is so often ignored and
barely understood! For to be sure: our whole life
is a succession of consequences that have had
their beginnings in thoughts - our thoughts! All
of our behaviour is determined and shaped by
our thoughts. Therefore, all our actions, positive
and negative, are ultimately thoughts that have
become visible…
29
KNOWING WHAT
30 Inhoud
Knowing what to do
TO DO
Street art of Banssky, no date, London GB
31
‘F
or heavens sake, go and do do. If we have this attitude the certainty of fruit. Sow loving deeds and
something!, many a mother what you have to do will certainly manifest you shall harvest their fruit.’
has cried. And: ‘Get off that itself. We have so many talents to utilise. But of course it is also: ‘For
sofa’. Doing nothing was just The philosopher, Wilhem Schmid gives us heavens sake, do something!
not an option for her. She this definition of work – ‘Work is every- Because if you remain pas-
herself was raised with the saying ‘the devil thing I do in relation to myself and my sive where acts of charity are
makes work for idle hands’. And work is life, in order to lead a good and valuable necessary, than you are in error
still the necessary format in Europe. Unem- life.’ This statement it is not about paid or and will fail.”
ployed older people have to apply for work voluntary work, it is all about the intention Do what your hands find to
that is just not available. Acknowledging with which my work is done. do. What you do does not
that there is not enough work for everyone, In her book The Intention Experiment Lynn matter all that much for unfor-
unless it would be drastically redistributed, McTaggart gives countless examples of tunately whatever we do in the
is not on the cards. Because of the expan- the influence of both an individual’s and material world is subjected to
sion, especially in agriculture, the holy a group’s conscious intentions in various the law of opposites. The es-
belief that ‘whoever has no work shall not situations and circumstances. In her book sence and the consequence of
eat’ no longer applies. she describes many scientifically based this is: act good and badness is
Our engrained work ethos should rather experiments that show that our conscious- near. The Only-Good is in this
become an ethos of a fair distribution of ness directly influences matter – a fact that respect certainly our inspira-
work. Then free time could also be divided traditional science hasn’t as yet accepted. tion but we must continuously
more fairly instead of wondering how we McTaggart states that everything around us be aware that it is not a part of
are going to fill in all this free-time. is influenced by our thoughts and inten- our material world.
We would then be free to fill it in to our tions, and that this essential influence is J. van Rijckenborgh, in his
own satisfaction. From feeding our Big much greater than we imagine. book Dei Gloria Intacta, des-
Egocentric Me with its ingrained consu- The Rosicrucians view on service to others cribes how this inner balance
merism on the one hand of the spectrum is all about an inner service. is reached in which the soul is
to serving our fellow men on the other, and has its basis in a an inner state of peace enlightened by the spirit and
or any gradation of behaviour in between and balance. adds: “I can imagine that there
these two opposites. Big Me is a term J. van Rijckenborgh describes this in the are even circumstances when a
coined by the humanist Harry Kunneman. Chinese Gnosis chapter 15: “You will live in Rosicrucian may be a soldier.”
Big Me has the following three characteris- perfect tranquillity of soul, whether in the He who understands how es-
tics: he gets bigger all the time because of temple or outside of it, and you will enter sential service is just has to do
his gross consumerism – he blows itself up the stillness, the silence, the great calm. something. Even if there is no
by making himself very important and he In the times drawing near, we will really clear solution at the start and
has a very thick skin. need this state of being if we want to avoid everything seems meaningless.
Any moral condemnation of him bounces being drawn into the fierce turmoil of the The required insight is that
off this thick skin and these features relate material world.’ through the ‘universe’, as the
not only to this symbolic individual but Relating to this peaceful principle, we may modern phrase is, or through
also to the economy, politics and ecology now understand Lao Tzu’s well-known Gods plan, as the Rosicrucians
of our time. Mankind as a whole behaves verse better in which he states: “By not- state, we are repeatedly given
like Big Me, says Kunneman. doing everything is done”. Only self-sur- insights to see the true mea-
At the same time there are also many render to the inner silence gives us the ning of life for humanity as a
people who choose the alternative, to serve right intention for the physical work. whole.
others. This is often difficult to implement, The Voice of the Silence states ‘There is space What are your own inner va-
as the needs are endless, both physically in you for acting and for non-acting’ and lues? We are worldwide pulled
and mentally. Where do you start? A simple warns us at the same time: “Non-acting, out of our comfort zone. The
rule for this is: do what your hands find to as a result of selfishness, can only bear bad atrocities are all around us and
32 Knowing what to do
Street art of Banssky, no date, London GB
its victims are knocking at our doors. So do receive the inspiration to act spontaneously silent joy – the Light is always
what you have to do even if it seemingly from its centre via a ‘not-doing through there!
brings you no results as yet. which everything is done’. Then our hu- It is there also when you
The Bible states: “Should someone possess manness will shine through everything we experience the hurt that your
all the worlds goods and close his heart for do. We accompany our fellow men through compassion with humanity
his brother or sister in need, then where is life as human beings on the same road and calls up within you.
the love of God?” we don’t hold ourselves aloof. It is a still joy, always present in
And in the Voice of Silence we read: ”If you The Voice of the Silence on this respect the background.
ever want to harvest sweet peace and rest, admonishes us: “Do not believe that living This awareness gives you the
sow then pupil, with the seeds of service, in proud seclusion, far from the people, insight to know what to do.
the fields of the future harvest. Accept the will lead you to the goal of the ultimate
sorrows of being born.” liberation.
If we accept life as it is, then from the In new understanding, brought about by * J. van Rijckenborgh and Catharose
resulting peace within the soul we will our self-surrender, we are suffused by a de Petri, The Chinese Gnose, chap. 15
33
Students of the Trinity College in Cambridge follow a lecture on how archaeology
may help to understand today’s climate change. 2013, England

Plato
and his Doctrine
of the Idea
TEXT BY W.K.C. GUTHRIE
FROM THE CLASSIC WORK
‘THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS, FROM THALES TO ARISTOTLE’
In the mature years of his eighty year life Plato felt

more and more attracted to the world of pure Being: the
consciousness, i.e. the consciousness of the world that
lies beyond the limited world of sensory perception –
and even beyond and above the world of the streams of
thoughts or the quicksilver mind.
It is the world of that which does not move and is im-
mutable, of that which neither dies, nor is born. It is
assumed that he spoke of this world only to his 28
students, who belonged to the core of his school, and
whom he received in his home. For the other students
in his academy, he taught a more general system to
acquire knowledge.
This essay explains the essential prerequisites for the
liberation of the soul. The various dialogues to which
the writer refers on the surface deal with the ideal
design and set-up of the city-state, but they can certain-
ly also be interpreted as the pure Gnostic archetype
which also inspired the founders of the Spiritual School
of the Modern Rosycross.
35
W
e shall probably and internal tyrannies, which followed more specific, by Apollo,
understand Plato’s defeat. Feeding on these discontents, acting as the mouthpiece
philosophy best if the prevailing currents of philosophi- or prophet of the Father of
we focus on the cal thought - with which we are at the all the gods, Zeus. Such a
two related motives moment concerned - had played their thing as personal and in-
that occupied him. He wished first of part in undermining the traditions, the dividual religion was un-
all to take up Socrates’s task at the point accepted conventions if you like, on known to the great majority
where Socrates had had to leave it, to which the smooth continuance of life of citizens. The sects which
consolidate his master’s teaching and in the little city-state to such a large attempted to introduce it
defend it against inevitable question- extent depended. never achieved much influ-
ing. But in this he was not acting solely To appreciate the situation, we must ence so long as the city-state
from motives of personal affection or realize how completely identified were held together, and in so far
respect. It fitted in with his second the state and its religion. It was not a as they had any success, they
motive, which was to defend, and to case of making the Church subordinate were subversive of the es-
render worth defending, the idea of the to the State. There was no word for tablished order.
city-state as an independent political, church at all, nor did such a thing ex-
economic, and social unit. For it was ist apart from the state itself. The gods It follows that to question
by accepting and developing Socrates’s were worshipped at festivals, which the established religion was
challenge to the Sophists that Plato were state occasions, and participation to question the basis of the
thought this wider aim could be most in them was part of the ordinary du- whole established order
successfully accomplished. ties and activities of a citizen as such. of society, and that no de-
The doom of the free city-state was Although many gods were worshipped fense of the citystate could
sealed by the conquests of Philip of at Athens, the patron of the city, and be adequate if it remained
Macedonia and his son, Alexander the deity nearest to every Athenian’s only on the political level.
the Great. It was they who were the heart, was of course Athena, and the A reasoned defense of its
cause that that small compact unit coincidence of name is significant. laws and institutions must
of the city-state was swamped by Religion and patriotism were the same provide them with an abso-
the growth of huge kingdoms on a thing. It is as if the religion of Britain lute or transcendent validity,
semi-Oriental model. But they did no were the worship of Britannia. The which could not be divorced
more than complete, be it in drastic Acropolis of Athens was Athena’s own from the theistic conception
fashion, a process of decline, which rock, and crowned by the temple ded- of the government of the
had been going on for some time icated to her. Her festival was the most Universe.
already. The causes were, of course, important in the Athenian calendar. We It was of course impossible
in part political. There were the dis- may be reminded that the sanction of to reinstate the old Homer-
ruptive effects of inter-state warfare, the law was rooted in the traditional ic pantheon in all its glory
and the disastrous effect on Athens belief of its divine origin. Laws had of 400 years earlier. These
- where the city-state organization of been given to the first law-makers, as all-too-human figures and
society had achieved its finest hour the tablets to Moses in Jewish belief, naughty gods had had their
– defeat itself and the moral collapse by the god of the people, or to be day, and even apart from the

attacks of atheistic philosophers or
Sophists, they could not recapture the
for some time when Plato wrote
his thoughts down. Since he was For the peo-
allegiance of an intelligent and in-
creasingly enlightened community.
among other things a practical po-
litical thinker, who had renounced ple of Athens,
But if gods in the old anthropomor-
an active political career only to
devote his life to the consideration the first laws
phic form were doomed in any case,
something must be put in their place
of political ideas, he was bound to
follow one of two courses. Either came from
to restore an element of order and
permanence, which in the late fifth
he must recognize (as he is some-
times nowadays blamed for not Apollo, acting
century was rapidly vanishing, both
from the sphere of human conduct
recognizing) that the city-state
with all its institutions and con- as prophet for
and from that of nature.
In the field of thought, the attack on
victions belonged to the past, join
with the disruptive forces, and out the Father of
the traditional bases of established
institutions was threefold: from nat-
of the different elements that had
brought about its downfall build all the gods,
ural philosophy, from the sophistic
movement, and from mysticism.
up a new society and a new reli-
gion to take its place. Or else he Zeus
With the third we shall not be much must use all his powers to uphold
concerned here, but we may note in the city-state, refuting its oppo-
passing the existence of independent nents where they seemed wrong,
religious teachers, of whom those and using them only to add
who used the writings attributed to strength to its framework where
Orpheus were the most important, they were right and represented
whose doctrine was subversive in that an element the lack of which was
it taught that a man’s religion might a weakness in the existing order.
concern his own individual soul and
not his duty to the State. The danger In any case the two sides, political
of natural philosophy lay in its lesson and religious (or metaphysical),
that the gods could not possibly ex- must blend. No real reform of the
ist in the form in which the city had fundamentals of political thought
inherited them from Homer; and that could take place without a corre-
of the Sophists in their suggestion sponding reform of men’s ideas
that the laws of the city had after all about the whole nature of reality.
no divine sanction: they had been All this was clear to Plato, and he
made by man and might as easily be threw the whole of his forces on
unmade. the side of Hellenism and the city-
These various currents of thought state. The writing of the Republic
had already been having their effect in the prime of his life, and his
37
It might indeed be impossible to
reinstate the old Homeric pantheon
with its all-too-human figures

Plato’s grotto? Crystal cave in the
Sequoia National Park, California, USA
From these, the most valuable cit- destructive forces already at

izens of the state, property and work within it.
family life is taken from them and Only if it preserved a ho-
is replaced with a communal super- mogeneity, or rather a
vision of their children and the (re) harmony as Plato would
distribution of duties and privileges have preferred to express it,
according to an almost inexorable based on the acceptance by
system of class-distinctions. All this each citizen of an alloca-
seems shocking to us. tion of function according
One of the listeners in the Dialogues to character and capacity,
is moved to remark that those who in could it hope for salvation.
the new order are to be the masters No wonder that the saint
of the state do not seem destined for of Platonism is Socrates,
a particularly happy life, since they who sat in prison awaiting
will have no houses or lands or other his death while his friends
possessions but live as if they were planned his escape and re-
a garrison of mercenaries, without plied to their suggestions
even drawing a mercenary’s pay, in statements like: ‘Do you
as Socrates points out to make his think a city can go on exist-
friend’s criticism even stronger than ing, and avoid being turned
it was. upside-down, if its judg-
The only reply given is: ‘Our aim in ments are to have no force
founding the city was not to give but are to be made null and
return to the same subject at the end especial happiness to one class, but as void by private individuals?’
of it with the Laws, show that he was far as possible to the city as a whole.’
true to the same ideal throughout, the The most pressing ques-
ideal of a reformed society based on The measures proposed were the tion arose directly out of
the purification and strengthening, logical conclusion of the city-state Socrates’s own teaching.
not on the abolition, of the city-state. and Plato saw that it had no chance In his simple endeavour
Among the ruling classes in Plato’s of survival unless it were pushed to to make men better, and
Republic the individual is subordinate its logical conclusion and deprived persuade them, as he him-
to the common weal with what ap- of the individual vagaries which, in self put it, to ‘care for their
pears to our eyes an excessive relent- the circumstances of the time, only own souls’, he had tried
lessness. gave room for the operation of the to make them see that they
39
ought not to be content with noting
individual acts of virtue - just, brave,
they were greatly interested. They were
content with vague notions, inherited Most Greeks
kindly acts and so forth - but should
do all that they could to understand
from primitive belief and canonized
by their acceptance in Homer, that it were matter-
and define the nature of the justice,
courage or kindness, which lay behind
was a kind of breath or vapour which
animated the body but in turn was of-fact in out-
them. It is not likely that the difficulty,
which this involves was first raised by
dependent on the body for its effica-
cy. At death the body perished, and look, with both
Plato himself. It was inevitable that the
single-minded zeal of Socrates, who
the psyche, left as it were homeless,
slipped out into a pale and shadowy feet firmly
as Aristotle said, concerned himself
exclusively with questions of conduct
existence without mind or strength.
Even for those who through the mys- planted on the
and not at all with the nature of things
as a whole, should arouse questions
teries hoped for something better after
death, it was a new and astonishing ground. The
and criticism in the lively and sceptical
intellects of contemporary Greece.
thing to be told that the psyche was
the seat of the moral and intellectual psyche was
The question is this. Your exhortation,
faculties and of far greater importance
than the body. not something
Socrates, involves a large assumption;
the assumption that such a thing as To uphold these novel views in the in which they
justice or virtue does exist apart from
the acts in which it is manifested. But
face of criticism, the two sides of phi-
losophy with which we started, meta- were greatly
does absolute justice or virtue in fact
truly exist? The truth is that a number
physical and moral, had to be brought
together. It was a task for which Pla- interested.
of people have acted in different times to was supremely fitted, for unlike
and circumstances in a way which we Socrates he had a keen interest in the
call just. But none of these separate problems of the nature of reality for
actions is claimed to be identical with their own sake, as well as in those of
the perfect justice whose definition is ethics. In coming to a decision on the
being sought. They are all thought to central question of what was real and
be only very imperfect approximations what was not, Plato was deeply influ-
to it. Yet after all, what can be said to enced by two earlier thinkers, Heracli-
exist except the individual’s just acts? tus and Parmenides.
And if your universal justice does not
exist, what is to be gained by pursuing The Heracliteans maintained that
such a will-o’-the-wisp? everything in the world of space and
time was continually flowing, as they
A second object of criticism was the put it. Change never ceased to operate
exhortation to ‘tend one’s soul’, and to for a moment and nothing was the
do it by the very method of self-ques- same for two instants together. The
tioning on which Socrates insisted: consequence of this doctrine appeared
for this suggestion too was one of to be that there could be no knowl-
extreme novelty. Most Greeks were edge of this world, since one cannot
matter-of-fact in outlook, with both be said to have knowledge of some-
feet firmly planted on the ground. The thing which is different from moment
psyche was not something in which to moment. Knowledge demands an

object to be stable in order to be ob- In another way, however, the English with an existence independ-
served and known. word will help us to understand what ent of our minds and out
it was to which he attributed this per- of reach of time or change.
Parmenides on the other hand had fect and independent existence. We say Otherwise knowledge is an
said that there is indeed such a stable that we have an ‘idea’ of goodness or idle dream and its object
reality, which can be discovered only equality, which enables us to mean the fantasy. With this faith one
through the activity of the mind work- same thing when we talk of good wine may reasonably go on to
ing altogether apart from the senses. or a good cricketer, equal triangles seek for a definition of the
The object of knowledge must be im- and equal chances, although there may good, and one will then un-
mutable and eternal, exempt from time seem to be little in common between derstand two different phe-
and change, whereas the senses only wine and cricketers, triangles and nomena of our world - the
bring us into contact with the mutable chances. If there is not some common cricketer and the wine, say
and perishable. ground of meaning when the same - in their common character
These reflections, together with a deep epithet is applied to different objects, as good, by referring them
interest in Pythagorean mathematics, then communication between man and to it as a common standard.
were brought by Plato to bear on the man must be given up as impossible.
questions of definition which Socrates We must suppose then an
had raised in the ethical field. For This common ground we call the idea ideal world containing eter-
him two things were simultaneous- or conception of goodness or equal- nal and perfect prototypes
ly at stake, not only the existence of ity. Most people would fight hard for of the natural world. What-
absolute moral standards which was their right to continue using the word ever of quasi-existence our
the legacy of Socrates, but also the ‘good’, and would claim that it has a changing world possesses,
whole possibility of scientific knowl- meaning of its own. Yet its use involves it owes to an imperfect
edge, which on a Heraclitean theory a real intellectual problem, and in fact participation in the full
of the world was a chimera. Plato had some philosophers to-day, when Pla- and perfect existence of the
a passionate faith in both, and since a tonic beliefs are rather out of fashion other. Since this is an atti-
sceptical answer was for him unthink- among our schoolmen, are very much tude which has something
able, he did the only other thing pos- inclined to question the claim that the in it of an almost religious
sible. He maintained that the objects use of general terms is legitimate at faith, even of mystical expe-
of knowledge, the things which could all. Certainly some of us who use them rience, and cannot be en-
be defined, did exist, but were not to might be hard put to say what there tirely explained by rational
be identified with anything in the per- was in common between the bodily argument (though Plato
ceptible world. Their existence was in skill required to bowl a straight ball or would have maintained
an ideal world outside space and time. hit a difficult one, and the flavor of a very strongly that ration-
These are the famous Platonic ‘Ideas’, wine. al argument proves that
so called by a transliteration of the we cannot do without it),
Greek word for idea which Plato ap- Plato would maintain that they had Plato has recourse to meta-
plied to them, and which meant form indeed something in common and that phor to explain the relation
or pattern. this could only be accounted for by the between the two worlds.
In one way then the English word assumption that both alike partake in Aristotle fastened on this
‘idea’ is about as unsuitable a render- the Idea of the Good. You are right to as a weakness, but it could
ing as could be found, for to us it sug- speak as you do of the idea of good- hardly have been otherwise.
gests what has no existence outside our ness or equality, he would say, but it is Sometimes he speaks of the
own minds, whereas to Plato the ideai just these things which you call merely ideal world as the model or
alone had full, complete, and inde- ideas, or concepts in the mind, which pattern of the other, which
pendent existence. we must believe to be absolute entities imitates it as far as material
41
things can, sometimes of a sharing or In the first place, he shared with of scientific theory have been
participation of the one in the exist- Socrates those two fundamental char- built on the assumption of
ence of the other. His favourite word acteristics, a faith in the possibilities their invariable truth. With-
to describe the relationship is one of knowledge and a conviction of the out the faith that the same
which suggests that between an actor’s need for absolute moral standards. laws of nature would operate
interpretation of a part and the part as And though it may seem to us that it to-morrow as they operat-
it was conceived by the author of the is possible to share this faith without ed yesterday, science would
play. making the assumption that there are make no progress. Yet it is no
We have come to the doctrine, as Plato eternal entities outside the world of more than faith, unless we
did, by way of Socrates. Consequently time and space, it was much more dif- attribut a transcendental and
we have met first the Ideas of moral ficult to maintain this at the particular absolute validity to them. We
and intellectual concepts. But Plato point in the history of philosophy treat them as if they had this
widened it to include all natural spe- when Plato was doing his thinking. absolute character, while at
cies. We only recognize individual We need only reflect for a moment on the same time denying that
horses as members of a specific spe- the preceding history of Greek philos- they have it.
cies, and have a concept which enables ophy, which we have looked at - the An even better example of
us to use and define the general term ceaseless flux, which the Heraclites the objectifying, at least in
‘horse’, because in the non-material attributed to the natural world and ordinary speech, of a general
world we have stored the ideal idea Parmenides who believed that what is term is one which is com-
of ‘horse’, from which the individual real, must necessarily be eternal and mented on in an appendix to
horses in this world imperfectly and unmovable. Ogden and Richards’ book,
transitorily are derived. The Meaning of Meaning. It
In fact in modern day thought there is written by a doctor and his
When Socrates in the Phaedo states: is more concurrence to the Platonic example is the use of names
‘This is what I cling to in my heart, Ideas than one might think. If chal- for different diseases. A word
simply and plainly and perhaps fool- lenged, their users would deny that like ‘influenza’ is a perfect
ishly ... that it is by beauty itself that they had any such concepts in mind, example of a general term
things become beautiful’, (1) he but in fact a surprising amount of covering a set of particular
means, if we translate his words into every-day thinking is conducted as if cases none of which are ex-
a more modern terminology: ‘We there were real and unvarying entities actly alike. Yet it is commonly
cannot give a scientific explanation of corresponding to the general terms spoken of as an absolute, a
a thing unless we can relate it to the that we use. thing which exists in its own
class to which it belongs, and that im- In science, we have the Laws of Nature. right. Even if the point were
plies knowledge of the class-concept.’ Each of these laws, if not so much put directly to them, a great
That last statement is one with which to-day then at least in the very recent many people would still fail
a great many people to-day would past, is treated very much as if it had to see that it had not a sep-
have no quarrel, yet they would not an existence apart from the events in arate existence of this sort.
agree with Plato in attributing to that which it is manifested; laws which are, Yet as the writer points out,
class-concept an individual existence of course, never entirely uniform, nor there are in our experience
of its own, independent of the mem- do they always work exactly the same. no diseases, only sick people
bers of its class, or the constant and Challenged, the scientist will reply and not two have exactly the
unvarying character which is the con- that of course these are only practical same symptoms. The general
sequence of independent existence. If conveniences and no more than rough term does not stand for any-
to Plato all this seemed to follow, then approximations to the truth. They thing real, which exists over
that was doubtless due to certain phil- represent strong probabilities but no and above the individual cas-
osophical predilections of his own. more. Nevertheless, imposing edifices es. The point here is a practi-

cal one, since a careless objectifying of
the disease can lead to a rigid and un-
In Plato’s philo-
imaginative approach by the physician
which will be the reverse of beneficial
sophy Reason
to the patient.
expressly in-
We may say then that in one way Plato
elevated to the status of philosophical
cludes ‘feelingly
doctrine, and defended as such, what
many of us in our conversation and
thinking’ and the
writing unconsciously assume; that is,
the existence of something invariable
still observing
corresponding to the general terms
that we use, over and above the varying
of what is right
individual instances which are all that
the term in fact covers.
and reasonable
The difference is that whereas the man
in the street is still in very much the
position in which Socrates found him,
of throwing general terms about freely
without pausing to think whether he
knows what they mean, Plato’s con-
sciously held belief that these stood for
a metaphysical reality was intended to
endorse the lesson of Socrates that we
would never get anywhere unless we
did that very thing - i.e. take the trou-
ble to find out exactly what they mean.
Given, then, the existence of a perfect

and timeless pattern-world, and given
that whatever reality we may attrib-
ute to the phenomena of the world in
which we live is due to their sharing
to a limited extent in the reality of the
transcendent Forms: how and when
(it may be asked) did we make the ac-
quaintance of those eternal Forms so
that we can as it were refer to them in
order to identify the creatures that we
see, or to recognize as partaking of the
good or the beautiful any action that
we see performed?
Here Plato developed and confirmed,

in the light of the religious teaching of
43
the Orphics and Pythagoreans, another together with the belief in the immor- have already had a direct
side of Socrates. It was said earlier that tality - or at least the pre-existence-of vision of the true realities,
another Socratic exhortation which the soul. It explains learning - the ac- it is possible for the feeble
needed amplification and defense was quisition of knowledge in this life - as and imperfect reflections
the exhortation to ‘tend one’s soul’, a process of recollection. The things of them on earth to remind
and it was in the doctrines of the re- that we perceive around us could us of what we have once
ligious reformers about the nature of not implant in us for the first time a known, but forgotten owing
the psyche that Plato saw the bridge knowledge of the notions of the uni- to the soul’s contamination
between the earth-bound human mind versal and the perfect which we believe with the material dross of
and the transcendent world of the Ideas. ourselves to possess. But because we the body.
In ordinary Greek belief, when the
body perished, the psyche, now a mere
homeless wraith, slipped out (‘like
smoke’, as Homer described it) into a
pale and shadowy existence without
mind or strength, which were given it
as the result of its investiture in bodily
organs. Perhaps (as Socrates on the day
of his death mischievously accuses his
friends of believing) it was particularly
dangerous to die when a high wind
was blowing, for it might catch up the
psyche and scatter it to the four corners
of the earth! It was not surprising that
in the atmosphere of such beliefs the
affirmation of Socrates that the psyche
was far more important than the body,
and ought even to be looked after at the
body’s expense, met with a good deal
of incredulity.
In support of this conviction of his
master, Plato reaffirmed the truth of
the Pythagorean religious doctrine
that the soul belongs in essence to the
eternal world and not the transitory. It
has had many earthly lives, and before
and between them, when out of the
body, has had glimpses of the reality
beyond. Bodily death is not an evil for
it, but rather a renewal of true life. The
body is compared both to a prison and
a tomb, from which the soul longs
to be released in order that it may fly
back to the world of Ideas with which
it had converse before its life on earth.
The doctrine of Ideas stands or falls

Plato’s Symposion, by Anselm Feuerbach, ca. 1869. In the picture, we see Agathon, who welcomes
Alcibiades. The contrast between the drunken guest and the spiritual figure of Agathon, depicts
the inner struggle of the painter. The painting is full of symbolism that refers to the spiritual life
of Plato’s Academy. Feuerbach worked more than fifteen years on this topic.
45
On the one hand, the Heracliteans main-
tained that everything is continually
flowing. Parmenides, on the other hand,
said that there is a stable reality
The Academy of Plato, mosaic at Pompeii, before 79 AD

The basic assumption of the doctrine of logical proof, although the com- Again in the Phaedrus we
is that the imperfect by itself could bination of religion and philosophy have the more definitely al-
never lead us to knowledge of the per- which it implies is suggested at the legorical myth in which the
fect. No two things in this world are outset when Socrates refers to it as a composite nature of the hu-
exactly, mathematically equal. If then doctrine held by ‘priests and priest- man soul is symbolized by
we have a definable idea in our minds esses who make it their business to the picture of it as a winged
of the true meaning of the word be able to give an account of their chariot in which a human
‘equal’, we cannot have got it merely actions’. Elsewhere, however, this side charioteer, representing
from an examination and comparison of Platonism is mostly to be found in the reason, drives a pair of
of sticks which we see or lines which the great myths which form a kind of horses, one high-spirited
we draw. These physical approxima- final set piece to so many of the dia- and naturally inclined to
tions have to be studied, but only logues. obey the charioteer, the
because they can assist the mind in its other bad and disobedient.
business of winning back the perfect The greatest is the myth of Er at the These represent the brave,
knowledge which it once had and end of the Republic, where a com- heroic side of human na-
which therefore is now latent within plete account is given of the whole ture, including strength
it. That is the role of sensation in the history of the soul, its series of incar- of will, and the bodily ap-
acquisition of knowledge. It cannot be nations, what happens to it between petites respectively. Once
dispensed with, but since all knowl- its earthly lives, and how when final- long ago the chariot made
edge acquired in this world is in fact ly purified, it escapes the wheel of its way round the very rim
recollection, once he has been set on birth forever. The fact that we do not of the Universe where it
the way by sense-perception the phi- remember the truths which we have could contemplate the eter-
losopher will ignore the body as far seen in the other world is accounted nal verities, but the restive
as possible and subdue its desires, in for in the myth by saying that when plunging of the bad horse
order to set free the soul (that is, for they are ready for rebirth the souls has brought it down and
Plato, the mind) and allow it to rise are compelled to drink of the water immersed it in the world of
above the world of sense and regain its of Lethe (the river of forgetting). As matter and change.
awareness of the perfect forms. they have just been made to traverse
a scorching and waterless plain, there The fact that so much is
Philosophy is, in the words of the is a temptation to drink deep, and expounded in mythical
Platonic Socrates, ‘a preparation for souls betray the degree to which they form has made it difficult
death’, in that its business is to fit the have advanced in philosophy by the for some people to be sure
soul to stay permanently in the world strength which they show in resist- how far Plato intended it to
of the Ideas instead of being con- ing the temptation. All however must be taken seriously. Perhaps
demned to return once more to the drink some, unless they are already the best answer that can be
limitations of a mortal frame. destined for escape from the body given is that which Plato
This view of the soul’s nature, as the into eternal communion with the himself gives in the Phaedo.
ultimate explanation of the possibility truth. This motif of the water of Lethe There the immortality of
of knowledge, permeates the whole of can be paralleled elsewhere in Greece, the soul is made the subject
the Phaedo, where it is expounded in both in myth and cult, and illustrates of dialectical proof, and the
dialectical form as well as in the sym- Plato’s use of traditional material for dialogue then closes with a
bolic language of the final myth. his own purposes. In his own mind it long myth in which much
was perhaps no more than an allegor- detail is given about the life
In another dialogue, the Meno, an ical expression of the actual effect of of the soul after death. At its
attempt is made to treat the theory of contamination by the clogging matter close, Socrates sums it up as
recollection as something susceptible of the body. follows: ‘Now to maintain
47
Visitors in front of a wall that shows Biodiversity in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
that these things are exactly as I have in regions of truth into which the
said would ill befit a man of common methods of dialectical reasoning could
sense; but that either this or some- not follow. The value of myth is that
thing similar is the truth about our it provides a way into these regions,
souls and their dwelling-places, this opened for us by poets and other men
(since the soul has been proved to be of religious genius. We take account of
immortal) does seem to me to be fit- myth not because we believe it to be
ting, and I think it is a risk worth tak- literally true, but as a means of pre-
ing for the man who thinks as we do.’ senting a possible account of truths
which we must admit to be too myste-
We may take it that the existence of rious for exact demonstration.
the Ideas, the immortality of the soul, In such brief reflections on Plato’s phi-
and the view of knowledge as recol- losophy as are being given here, it was
lection were all seriously held philo- a problem to know what to put in and
sophic doctrines. Beyond that point what to leave out. Whatever the choice,
Plato thought the human mind could it is practically impossible to avoid a
not go by its particular instruments of one-sided picture of the man and his
dialectical thinking. But these conclu- mind. So far I have chosen to speak of
sions themselves necessitated a belief a fundamental doctrine like the theory

of Ideas and to allow it to lead on, as A preliminary education up to seven-
it naturally does, to the more meta- teen or eighteen is to be followed by
physical and even mystical side. Since three years of physical and military
moreover the works most commonly training. Then follows ten years of ad-
read by those with a general interest vanced mathematics, leading to five
in Plato are the Republic and the Laws, more years of study in the highest
and in them most attention is likely branches of philosophy. Some elim-
to be paid to the details of his politi- ination takes place at each stage, and
cal theory, this is perhaps justified. It those finally selected are ready for
is essential to understand the spirit in subordinate posts at the age of thir-
which he approached his task, and for ty-five.
the Republic at least, a knowledge of Political power will then be for these
all the main doctrines that have here philosophers a burden rather than a
been outlined, and of the spiritual out- temptation, but they will shoulder
look which they represent, is an indis- it for the good of the community. It
pensable preliminary. Lest, however, is another indication that the ruling
what I have said so far should suggest a class in the Platonic state will be by no
picture of him as sitting with his eyes means the most fortunate, although in
for ever fixed on another world, we virtue of their enlightenment they are
may remind ourselves before we stop in Plato’s view the most truly happy.
of the sense of duty which he incul-
cates, e.g, in the allegory of the Cave in
the Republic.
The philosopher who has succeeded in This article comes from the fifth chapter
leaving the shadow-play in the cavern of W.K.C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers
from Thales to Aristotle (1950)
of earthly life for the real world in the
sunlight outside, will, he says, inevita-
bly be impelled to return and tell his
former fellow-prisoners of the truth
which he has learned. Such men in fact
must form the ruling class of the Pla-
tonic Republic. ‘Unless political power
and philosophy meet together, there
can be no rest from troubles.’
To govern adequately, its rulers must
attain a wisdom that is almost divine,
for if they are to direct the State to-
wards the good they must know the
truth and not merely its shadow. That
is to say, they must recover the knowl-
edge of the perfect Idea of which all
the goodness in this world is but a
pale, unsteady reflection. Hence the
long and rigorous discipline which
they have to undergo before they are
adjudged fit to rule.
49
Dispelling Wetiko – Breaking The Curse Of Evil
« Dispelling Wetiko is one of those rare, courageous ed, feed this virus and will
books that leads us where we would prefer not to ultimately kill its host. Wetiko
go: into the depths of our own shadow. Yet this is preys on the creative imagi-
the most essential journey for our present time … nation that it lacks itself. As
It is a must-read, without a doubt.” a result, if we do not use the
(Caroline Myss) divine gift of our creative
imagination in the service
of life, wetiko will use our
In Dispelling Wetiko, which means driving out wetiko that is: imagination against us with
breaking the curse of evil, researcher-artist Paul Levy tells of a lethal consequences. The
mental illness, a collective psychosis afflicting humanity that wetiko predator competes
the indigenous American peoples call ‘wetiko.’ Someone who with us for a part of our own
has degenerated to wetiko is plagued with excessive greed- mind, wanting to sit in our
iness and self-seeking, thriving on the life-energy of others, driving seat. Then, instead of
Born in New York in 1956, Paul unable to muster any compassion. The author describes it as sovereign beings that con-
Levy studied economics and fine an ancient virus that has nestled in our psyche, behaving like sciously create by means of
arts. In the 1990s he worked a deranged antibody, seeing the healthy parts as tumors and our thoughts, we are uncon-
for the Jung Foundation. After
intense spiritual experiences, attacking them. sciously determined by them,
he founded ‘Awakening in the since the wetiko pathogen
Dream’- groups in which he ac-
companies people in discovering
Paul Levy further enlarges on this vision by explaining how literally thinks in our place.’
the true nature of our reality. this disease in our time breaks out before our eyes on a
He is a lecturer and tutor, a global scale with the devastation of our planet as a result. Another aspect that the
practicing Tibetan Buddhist and
author, whose books include Examples galore: the deforestation of the Amazon (indeed author cites is the knowl-
‘The Madness of George Bush: A the lungs of our planet), the oil pollution in our oceans, the edge of quantum physics,
Reflection of Our Collective Psy-
unbridled greed of the Wall Street system, and the terrible which teaches us that the
chosis’ and ‘Dispelling Wetiko:
The Greatest Epidemic Sickness wars and acts of violence that fill our media headlines. observer and the observed are
Known to Humanity.’ For this disaster humans are to blame without a shred of not separate; that all things
empathy, infected by cancer of the soul, which turns them interconnect, as happens in
against humanity. The Gnostics of old already knew of this a dream, and all phenomena
phenomenon, as is shown in the teachings of the archons inextricably correlate every-
and eons (see pentagram 4-2015). where at every moment. This
In the author’s vision, these psychosis-like expressions of knowledge is fundamental for
the human mind ultimately acquire an independence and the correct understanding of
compel human beings on a subconscious level to a way of life our reality. The moment we
wholly contrary to their deepest self. In such a life-practice all understand how our indi-
life-energy is food for the demon, a term he derives from C. vidual and collective reality
G. Jung. manifests itself- that moment
of insight is the crossover
‘Wetiko can also subliminally instil thought-forms and per- point at which we can change
suasions into our minds which, when unconsciously enact- things. And we would do well
50 Inhoud
Books
Books
Paul Levy
to grasp this, for according to the part (which is the

to the author a higher vision fullness!) that cannot be per-
reveals itself from which it is turbed. In the world but not
then possible to take action. of the world, one could say.
A final quote: “Although
Only thus are we able to wetiko is the source of
restore the connection with humanity’s inhumanity to
the “quantum vacuum”, that itself, it is for humanity at
infinite field of living energy the same time, the largest
and of immeasurable poten- accelerator that evolution has
tial, and resurge as Homo ever known (and not known)
Maximus, the perfect man as because it is an impulse to
Swedenborg termed it. become perceptive of the
The author also suggests a ‘dreamlike nature’ of the uni-
possible solution. Because verse. While a virus normally
the origin of this disease is in mutates to resist our attempts
our mind, we shall find the to annihilate it, the mercu-
solution there, too. Accord- ry-like wetiko-virus compels
ing to Paul Levy, we usually us to mutate ourselves and
think illumination means evolve further. Paradoxically
discovering ourselves in the we don’t ‘heal’ from wetiko –
light, but since this is part of wetiko heals us.”
our wetiko-reality, we would
benefit more from observ- In his commentary, the au-
ing our ‘darkness’, which is thor tells how he arrived at
animated by that light. these insights, which adds a
great deal to the book. It is a
The author describes how familiar story for every seeker
‘wetiko’ obliges us to pay who along the way must try
attention to the role the mind out many signposts if they
plays in creating our reality, lead to the truth. Undoubt-
both for ourselves and of edly, Paul Levy hands us some
the world at large. He calls workable and achievable
us to revert to the part in us insights that could turn our
that cannot be ‘possessed’ world upside down, which in
or ‘owned’ that is: our self in this case offers a liberating
which we find the wholeness perspective.
of our being, as he puts it.
In this way we do not fight
against evil, but we connect
51
Life is the art of returning to nature, without ad-
hering to it, without romantically exalting it, but also
without placing nature exclusively in a bad light, as
if it opposes humanity and its path, for nature herself
is no such opponent.
T
This is how positively the classical Rosicrucians regarded nature.
Inspired by Paracelsus they write, ‘Examine the book M,’ the book
of the world, Liber Mundi, the book of nature. In the late six-
teenth and early seventeenth centuries, nature was a great source
of inspiration for several spiritual and scientific currents. To rec-
ognize the ‘book’ it is first necessary to determine man’s anomaly
with nature. This is of course subjective, but through knowing the
anomaly, original nature may all the better inspire us.
What first strikes one here is that nature is ‘defiled,’ or maybe
one should say ‘no longer pristine’. In Western countries there is
usually not much of the original physical nature that is pristine.
It is all developed, or even changed into ‘new nature.’ This has
mainly to do with economy and how we have utilized nature to
provide us profit and advantage - a profit-characteristic as old as
humanity itself.
The glass circle ‘Greeting to the Sun’ glistens on the

Zadar peninsula. Three hundred glass plates with photo
voltaic cells absorb solar energy by day and after sunset
respond alegorically with light in rhythm with the sounds
of the adjacent ‘Sea Organ.’ Architectoral art by architect
Nikola Bašic, Zadar, Dalmatia, Southern Croatia.

Our present day
socio-economic
straightjacket
53
Profit seeking lar must now also validate its economic
In that very special 17th century the con- motives.
cept of commerce was associated with The fast growing European world trade
the profit motive in a positive way. Pur- in the seventeenth century was not driv-
suing profit or gain was a civil virtue and en by an Invisible Hand, as the philoso-
striving in one’s own interest would give pher of economic liberalism Adam Smith
life to the populace as a whole. dared to proclaim. On the contrary, con-
In the twentieth century, the American tracts were sealed with oriental sultanates
novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand struck and South American and Asian rulers and
the same chord in her novel The Virtue chiefs under the threat of naval artilery.
of Selfishness: for the public at large it is
better when each of us strives for gain Insight into the microcosm-macro-
and that self-interest prevails, for in the cosm relationship?
long term that will be advantageous for Conclusion? Rather than deepen or illu-
the community. mine our understanding of that highly
Self-interest is thus a civil virtue, with praised nature, which, among many oth-
which the god of commerce was (and ers, the classical Rosicrucians observed,
is) seen exclusively as a positive Mercu- culture has estranged us from nature.
ry-quality and not as the god of thieves, Culture gives us no deeper understand-
as he was known in both capacities in ing of the microcosm-macrocosm rela-
Greek mythology. tionship. At least not as long as we con-
In the seventeenth century, and more tinue chasing profit for ourselves. Society
recently by Ayn Rand, commerce is un- grows more rigid and is polarized by it.
derstood exclusively as a positive Mercu- Such a society of compulsive consum-
ry-characheristic. erism creates no enlightenment or new
insight for the individual but rather more
We know of yet another side of the god- and more possibilities for addiction. Thus
of-thieves Mercury, also since ancient creating not a greater freedom in indi-
Greek mythology, trading year in year vidual development, but a tighter bind-
out, in a one-sided cultural perspective ing to ‘products’ or what was formerly
embodying the threat of violence. called ‘matter’ or ‘dust’ or ‘earth’; a track
Is ‘profit’ natural? Has this aspect of ego- that often runs from interest to fascina-
ism something to do with a specific of tion, and then to a habit and finally to
human nature? Professor Inger Leemans dependence and addiction. In the mid
says in The Nature of the Economy with re- 1990’s a cell phone was useful, now it
gard to this: ‘Capitalism is also a prod- is indispensable, a social must-have, and
uct of the imaginative power. A broad you border on the antisocial if you are
arsenal of concepts is necessary to make not reachable on a mobile device.
capitalism seem ‘natural’, to give traders
confidence in the economic process and Deviation schedule
to provide a warrant for their self-im- ‘Nature - culture - virtual reality’ is how
age’. We have not only ‘defiled’ physical a modern thinker defines the modern
nature for profit and gain, but since that human progression. In this context, what
same seventeenth century, we have also is the wisdom-potential for natural man?
cultivated the psychical and spiritual hu- A wisdom that is gnostic and thoroughly
man nature. The human mind in particu- knows the microcosm-macrocosm re-

lationship? Over the last four hundred in itself enrichment for a consciousness
years, the possibility has always existed that wisdom would embrace. Wisdom is
to deepen the wisdom-knowledge rela- the ability to behold and weigh-up all of
tionship without doing violence to the life’s realities, interconnections, causes
nature of economic or power motives. and outcomes in a fraction of a second
But how is the development of wisdom in order to choose the right action. The
and knowledge progressing? facts-culture can even become a burden
when the upper room grows top-heavy
Firstly, we should discern between wis- and the scholar in us absent minded, no
dom and knowledge, for they are two longer able to string together the vast
different qualities. By expanding our domain of knowledge. Lacking the cohe-
knowledge, we have lost wisdom. We see sive force, he can no longer manage to
the facts and descriptions of time-spatial connect the links, and remains standing
phenomena, conditions, processes and in the highly accelerated knowledge of a
functions as truths that are parts of wis- separated discipline.
dom. Yet through this culture of facts,
we relinquish wisdom. With knowledge In information, we lose knowledge
alone, we lose true wisdom. The cause It can diverge even further, as shows
of this is the lost connection, and the when we examine the shift from knowl-
connection is love. Love makes it possi- edge to information.
ble to establish the elements of wisdom Anno 2015 there is an overwhelming
in knowledge on a human plane. Then amount of information with a declining
knowledge can be reasonable, which percentage of ‘knowledge’. As we saw,
means ‘beholding’ in and out of the rea- wisdom is the faculty of interconnection.
son that is united with love. Knowledge is what you have accumulated
The transition from original nature to the and therefore ‘know,’ and about which
facts-culture is a deviation. The ‘objective’ you do not have to consult someone or
knowledge of the facts-culture is not something. Information is a totally differ-
WE ARE A ROCK HARD I

The human consciousness is currently individualised to the ex- means of the heart-I - feeling, and the head-I - thinking, both of
treme. We are materialised to the extreme. We are a rock hard which frequently come into conflict with the belly-I. Our upbring-
I-centred. We are conscious as an I-being in a physical world, a ing mainly focuses on regulating the belly-I through the faculties
world that we perceive externally with our senses. This I-being of feeling and thinking. The I clothes it in a culture. It learns to be
experiences only differences, contrasts and contradictions. We see subordinate to others, driven by the fear of losing attachments,
light because of its contrast, darkness et cetera. As an ‘I’ we can affection, love; thus maintaining a certain balance individually and
be conscious of something. We are externally oriented to other collectively. As we know, it is a very delicate balance and, when
people, things and phenomena. We are consciousness relating to threatened, the temper-regulated I-being mostly ends up being
one point. We can distinguish three I-centres. The first is the belly boss. Modern western scientific theories explain human behaviour
‘I’, the instinctual, animal I-being. This is clearly the strongest I, on the one hand by hereditary factors, on the other hand by cir-
fighting for life’s basic needs. It makes a human being viable in our cumstances. We acquire behaviour. If something proves successful
world, for man has need of food and warmth and goes in search and rewarding, we do it more often. This concept explains human
of it. Then a kind of adjustment, a certain culture arises by behaviour to some extent, but not entirely.
55
ent thing. Information does not serve the tion we are bombed with which suggests Consumption must have the
human consciousness aspect of ‘knowl- that we cannot comprehend reality due greatest possible turnover,
edge’ but represents a - sometimes even to the complexity and quantity of the achieved by offering for free
abstract - factuality that suggests the real- overload of data, which can no longer as many information and com-
ity. The flow of information runs counter even be stored in our own already heavi- munication products as pos-
to the advice: ‘Know thyself’. ly loaded upper room. ‘What one cannot sible, in exchange for which
But we do not dare to give this back; we hold and contain, one cannot reflect the consumers ‘pay’ with their
do not say to Google ‘that’s your opinion, upon, and what one no longer thinks highly personalized data and
or that’s your reality.’ No, we take the about, eventually does not exist.’ Thus attention; and with that data
facts for reality, and that diminishes our says German philosopher and anti-atomic and attention, new customized
own human knowledge, the potential activist Günther Anders. offers can again be made.
self-knowledge of our own microcosm This happens wholly outside
in relation to the macrocosm. Information management of our perception-sphere, as
For the soul, the downward turning point if there is an invisible facto-
No more grip on reality? came with the start of the culture-era in ry where an equally invisible
How is it that we let reality escape our which the industrial revolution began. work force catches and ma-
awareness in this virtual arena? Primarily Now it revolves not so much around the nipulates the consumer’s soul.
of course, because of the extent to which management of energy but of informa- Automatic, easy catches, based
we have deviated from nature, and sec- tion, the output of which is wholly sub- purely on data.
ondly because of the excessive informa- ordinated to our consumption. Taken up in this invisible

WE ARE OUR THOUGHTS, FEELINGS AND DESIRES
Human life also has a non-material side. As well as a physical we exercise any influence on it? What is our situation? We attract
being, we are also a feeling being and a thinking being. Our particularised emotional energy to ourselves with our feeling, our
thinking, feeling and wanting is bound to a physical body, but it desiring, and we repel the things that we do not want. In this
also forms a reality in itself. We think, feel and want. These are way, we consciously or unconsciously create an emotional field
energetic processes. These processes within us connect with the around us which we breathe in and out. It is a field in which we
outside world; a world of emotional and thinking energy and it live, and precisely the same applies to our thinking and action life.
is our connection with the world around us. Becoming conscious We attract and repel forces.
of this reality - that we are a thinking feeling being in a world of This creates a very private reality. It is our own, personal reali-
emotional and mental energy and its laws - could be called eso- ty - islands in the physical world, - which includes the worlds of
teric psychology: it means perceiving your relationship with these feelings and thoughts. As I-beings, we all have our own percep-
forces or energies. tion, our unique interpretation of reality, and very clearly our own
What do we think, feel, want? What is taking place here? Can interests, that often clash with those of others.
57
labyrinth of servers every sender is a In just two decades, digital services and nigh impossible. The more so
receiver, all are outputs and inputs. The products have radically influenced the since the susceptible elements
raw material and endproduct of this dig- conditions of human existence. If the of culture, such as a bona fide
ital-industrial chain is thus wholly to do Internet would shut down tomorrow or spirituality, trustworthy philo-
with man, who is both input and output if the ‘cloud’ disappeared in a mysterious sophical insights and inspiring
of the process. Muscles, nervous system, black hole, the result would unquestiona- and uplifting art, are failing
thinking and imagination, desires and bly be a global crash, life on earth would more than ever.
deepest secrets, not the least thing may largely come to a standstill, says Hans We can hardly fall back on a
be overlooked, everything must be uti- Schnitzler. The digital infrastructure in cultural heritage or memory,
lised in the production and consumption place today not only conditions our daily not even the enormous eso-
process, one’s total energy and attention concerns, it also infiltrates a number of teric treasure of the preceding
must be mobilised, one’s entire soul and fundamental life-conditions that define centuries. Yes, of course you
salvation must be oriented to production our humanity, the digital deforming of can look it up, google it, but
and merchandise. which interferes deeply with the essence increasingly only what you can
of our human worth. experience at this moment is
Aberrant behavior and psychical dis- We can hardly fall back on a cultural real. The American author Phil-
turbances in the virtual era heritage or memory, not even the enor- ip Roth already stated in 2001
This total instrumentalization of people mous esoteric treasure of the preceding that uplifting truths such as
threatens to reduce the human being centuries esotericism offers us, are not
to a ‘new proletarian’, such as Hans interesting anymore, and hard-
Schnitzler descibes in The digital proletariat, Return to which nature? ly tie-in with our conscious-
and the ‘infocracy’ that establishes its But is it still possible to go back? Back to ness, because they mostly pre-
power through overload. The signature that nature which is in accordance with suppose a hidden reality that is
of this interminable and overwhelming our human worth? Despite its unmasked different to the great exposed
expansion of information is brain hy- legitimatising of self-seeking, the market reality in which we live. People
perstimulation. Such hyperstimulation, now governs and dictates the socio-eco- of today, especially young peo-
writes Hans Schnitzler, can entail new nomic conditions of our existence, tai- ple, simply want to live and
disturbences, such as attention disorders, lored to the totalitarian infocratic regime experience this greater reality
egomania, identity crisis, amnesia, sol- to such an extent that one might con- directly, preferably not in text
ipsism, dissociative disorders, regression sider that learning and breathing again but in image form.
symptoms, violent fantasies, delusions of in attunement with the original nature
grandeur, obsession, compulsive neuro-
ses (twitteritus, facebook-fetishism, com-
pulsive click-and-surf behaviour), digital KARMA
dementia, exhibitionism, tunnel reaction, All human behavior, thinking and feeling, has consequences and is, so to speak, re-
info-socio obesity, digistress, game and memberd, stored. Everything we do, and do to others, forms force-lines and tensions
sex addiction, depression, and so on, but that will have to discharge themselves again in space and the time - an elementary
we’d better stop here. condition of the law of karma, which in modern terms we might call the law con-
serving the balance of energy. Karma protects the world and humankind, maintain-
The restoration of nature? ing equilibrium. It takes care of the interconnectedness throughout the whole, the
divine. One often sees karma as events that happen to us while we stand in the
O, how remote we are from nature! The
stream of time. Karma is also the specific flow of emotion, the continual, emotional
English philosopher John Gray cautions:
coloring of all the events to which we are bound, against which we resist only with
‘We must acknowledge however, that if
great difficulty. They are like addictions. In extreme cases we speak of obsessions.
we recreate nature and customize it to our
It concerns our feelings, thoughts and actions that control us via the subconscious
human will, we run the risk of sculpting I-being, the sum of our past.
an image of our own pathologies.’

We can hardly fall back on a
Moreover, the major ideologies and com-
posite doctrines are ignored, with the
cultural heritage or memory,

exception of the market ideology.
When in this light the virtual reality of
not even the enormous esoteric

the internet, and all the techno-econom-
ical developments that grew out of it, has
treasure of the preceding

us more or less wrapped and bound - or
perhaps we have let ourselves be seduced
centuries
into captivity and modern slavery - then
any endeavour to return to the original
nature would seem hopeless. Why should
we? And who needs wisdom? After all,
wisdom often relates to transparency, ty - the undivided wholeness of the life-streams of nature’s realms
which entails an increasing number of great reality upon which we as humans flow through the ether.’
disadvantages. depend - to unite with nature as the clas-
‘Things become transparent when they sical Rosicrucian saw her? As a source of The narrow rungs of the
are smoothed out and streamlined, flexi- inspiration, as the highest reality of wis- mercury ladder do not refer
bly accommodating the ripple-free flows dom and knowledge, can this mystical to the mercury influence of
of capital, communication and informa- rose also flourish in the present time? thieves and merchants, nor
tion,’ the Korean philosopher Byung- to the market that maintains
Chul Han summarises powerfully. Which mercury ladder can we still the robbery in and of the
About transparancey, the French sociol- climb? world, nor to the derailed
ogist Jean Baudrillard says ‘This hyper- Not nature-mystically, remaining at a intellectual reasoning. That
visibility is our fatal condition, together standstill glorified in a romantic delight. mercury ladder is the ascent
with the end of the secret. When all the That does not work, as the past three to the mystic-reason. This
riddles are solved, the stars will be ex- centuries have shown us. Yet there is ascent resembles a spiritual
tinguished. When every secret is made an attitude of soul and spirit that can marriage. There is a very ear-
visible, and more than visible - obscene- give us back our contact with nature via ly rendering of the spiritual
ly evident; and when every illusion has the unity and the One, enabling us to wedding by the Rhineland
become transparent, then heaven leaves rediscover what is valuable and worth- thinker Jan van Ruusbroec.
the earth to its fate.’ So it is indeed true while. Not anatural mysticism but the In the thirteenth century, he
what the Rosicrucian Manifestos say mysticism-of-being can place us in the recognised the dangers of
about the mysteries: ‘Unveiled mysteries consciousness atmosphere that we can nature-mysticism - musing
become worthless, defiled they lose their call spiritual. A rosa mystica. That is what in the spiritual sun with-
strength.’ mystic-magic orientation means. out active involvement. He
In the book The Confession of the Brotherhood described this in The Spiritual
A wholly different orientation of the Rosycross (Confessio Fraternitatis), Wedding. The theme of this
Yet this excess of information - which J. van Rijckenborgh presents the new work is ‘Behold, the bride-
our brain cannot process into the total- orientation to nature in the chapter ‘The groom comes - go out and
ity of consciousness relating to our soul Wonderful Book’ as follows: ‘We, who meet him.’ The last part is a
- can offer a significant opening in this investigate the relationship between mystic-magic necessity. It is
all but desperate situation. When, in the macrocosm and microcosm, see the mag- an inner microcosmic hap-
endless variety, complexity and infinite nificent equilibrium between all things. pening, resonating with the
data a binding with the original unde- We, who grasp the narrow rungs of the macrocosm, completely in
filed nature is not possible, then perhaps mercury-ladder to lift our conscious be- harmony with the original
it is possible in the context of the all-uni- ing into the worlds of the unseen, see the natural state.
59
The mysticism-of-being in the twen-
STRUGGLE AND RECOGNITION
ty-first century What is our relation with the cosmos, with the All, the great sublime totality that is
That original nature, that Spinoza even God? It is the relationship of a creative force: the creator with its creature, the creat-
called God, knows a source of wisdom ed. In the deepest sense I recognize two possibilities. That is my liberty.
and knowledge with no equal. In the 1. I struggle against reality, against creation; I want it different to what it is. I cut
wisdom of that nature, Divine Love re- myself off and lay a series of causes on course that inevitably have consequences in
veals itself. Yet at the same time the ne- space and time.
cessity for the manifestation of man as a That is inevitable because in deepest essence reality cannot be divided, split. God is
reflection of the Divine-Nature state, as one. Also in space and time, the split remains one undivided reality. I only cut myself
microcosmic sons and daughters of God, off and this will cause my death. I then eat from the tree of the knowledge of good
because that is what nature desires most, and evil.
according to Paul. Therefore, it is not 2. I acknowledge, recognise in myself the creator, which I myself am not. In this I im-
merely entrancing to go the path, to ac- mediately acknowledge, recognise the love that the creator is and sends to me. He
complish the transformation in the pow- sends me a force with which he creates, brings forth his child. The perfect creation,
er of Christ. It is not just a solution for which is love. That force is sent to us. And crucified in ignorance. Crucified, because
those who are totally stuck in the virtual I struggle, fight and do not know what love is. When I stop struggling and surrender
reality that they themselves have helped and give myself to this love, it becomes one with me. Together with him, we are
to create. It is out of sheer necessity, and again the Two, the creation from the tree of life.
out of the wisdom, which is love.
Sources
- Het digitale proletariaat (The digital proletariat),
H. Schnitzler, De Bezige Bij,
Amsterdam, 2015.
- Vrijheid, gelijkheid en gewinzucht (Freedom, .
equality and profit), Science Annex,
NRC-Handelsblad, 8-10-2015.
- Ruusbroec in gesprek met het Oosten - Boeddhisme
en Christendom (Ruusbroec in conversation with
the East), P. Mommaers et J. van Bragt,
Averbode/Kok Kampen,1995.
- The Nature of the Economy, I. Leemans,
Amsterdam, 2015.

Column
The blind spot
A sort of instinctive reflex spontaneously divides my from all this that loss and gain are but relative qualities
observations into good and bad, into for and against, that harbour a unique essential with regard to the rec-
and so forces me to permanently take sides. onciliation of opposites, that is; the building of bridges
But why should I accept this despotic reflex? For so between them. In this essential I detect the power of
I fashion an existence in which I go along with one the hermetic quote: “As above, so below” – and yes, I
half and reject the other, for that is what I do and I discover it even in myself! Below I am governed by my
am therefore continuously saddled with a blind spot. need to be right but when I observe this in all honesty I
Exactly at the spot where good and bad overlap my realise how my being in the right crumbles because it is
assurance that I am right cloud my observation. dissolved by the unifying ‘Force that never slumbers or
Because the middle ground is thus hidden and una- sleeps,’ the force which extracts the right medicine from
vailable, I find myself in a battlefield of opinions and all these opposites. I only need to add some water in my
choices, which I then have to correct again later. (so called) wine – be it a sufficient quantity though–
And so, if I look at it afterwards, I may well wonder and just in time I am able to take the middle way.
what the actual result was of a so-called success. Or
of an apparent disappointment.
Without heaven the earth is not
T he ‘head’ side of the coin is the aspect that suits

me best at the moment. If I turn to the ‘tails’
side, then both sides change their aspect and
their alleged quality. In this way good and bad and
front and back often change places. Friend turns into
worth living in
This middle way involves inhaling and exhaling life in

its entirety. Taking and giving. When I observe my life in
foe, a no-no becomes fashionable – and all of them the hermetic way then all illusion evaporates and I stand
are self-created walls cherished by my convictions at a eye to eye with myself. I am then the crucible of heaven
certain moment. and earth. The blind spot gradually dissolves and I receive
And I – I walk headlong into these walls again and a foretaste of Eternity. The stumbling block becomes a
again – until I am finally prepared to give up my con- stepping stone - solid ground on which life unfolds and
victions and adopt another view. Until I am ready to from which I may freely make my choices.
question my right to mete out this impulsive summary Without the earth heaven is tasteless. Without heaven the
justice and find myself willing to bring the ‘tails’ side earth is not worth living in. Look around. Look at all the
of the coin to the fore. We’ve often heard it said: “Look people who have forgotten this. When I unite the two
at it from the other side’. Not always easy but certainly spheres and leave the opposites behind me, then I will
worth the effort. Where I feared for loss of face I gained see a new heaven-earth. From that moment on I fully take
another point of view. up my responsibility and I am co-builder of the All.
Or we hear: “Make a virtue of necessity” as well as:
“Nothing so bad but it brings some good”. We learn Illustration: Golden coin of Philip II of Macedon, 359-356 BC
61
62 Circle and point
Symbol
Circle and point
S
un – Circle – Spirit
The first symbol is a simple disc, an ancient and universal symbol of
unity, wholeness and infinity. The second archaic symbol is a disc with
a point in the centre, the first differentiation: the solar logos, neutral
and infinite, as we learn from the “Secret Doctrine” of H.P. Blavatsky.
The point is the starting as well as the turning point. Thus there is a starting point
but also expansion.
Together, the circle and the point within also represent the symbol of the solar
system, the sun, the microcosm and man.
The point is the spirit, the spiritual seed, in which and through which all develop-
ment becomes possible. The circle is the enclosure, the cosmos of the spiritualised
matrix, a sacred space.
Gnostic traditions connect the continuous circle with Ouroboros, the ‘world
snake’, which forms a circle by biting its own tail. In this sense the Spiritual
School has connected its symbol to this universal starting point. The new symbol
consists of nine elements, sorted in an exact determined order. This sequence will
be actively used in everything that we as a School undertake:
• As a starting point, use the simplicity and the unity of the point, the turning
point, the spirit, and create a conscious connection with the centre, with the rose,
with the heart of the All-Creation, to be a central point in everything you do, even
in the smallest and seemingly unimportant things;
• Connect the three powers of your soul – the fiery triangle of heart, head and
hands, to that source as the basis, the true meaning behind all things – and let
your soul be guided by the spirit within you;
• Initiate your most important activity: the construction of your own Being, on
the basis of the square and harness the four forces of your personality – willing,
thinking, desiring and acting, as the four horses to Apollo’s chariot in the service
of spirit and soul;
• Finally place yourself on the universality of the circle, which encompasses every-
one and reaches out to everyone. Manifest this in your life even unto the smallest
details as a truly living connection between spirit and life, through the living forc-
es of your reborn soul!
The point – the turning point – the spirit

The triangle of the reborn spirit-soul
The foursquare of the transfigured personality
The circle of the new life field
Here, in this life, unveiled!
63
World images
Angel’s Landing, 7 o’clock in the morning, on top of the world (Utah, USA) © Dong Nan Xi Bei
The spirit is the subtlest of all that can be perceived. The spirit is above all
and reigns in the highest abode, subordinate only to the supreme Deity,
Who is eternal, holy and exalted.
64 World images
The periodical Pentagram is published Editorial address Address in England: Address in Canada
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New subscriptions can take effect at any reproduced in any form without written
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The Netherlands Chatham NY 12037
e-mail: [email protected]
CONTRIBUTIONS
• The salt of the earth
• The activity of the world brotherhood
• Who am I? What has formed me?
• Thinking of Hermes
• Knowing what you have to do
• The straightjacket of the socio-economic now
SECTIONS
• Bookreview: Paul Levy, Dispelling Wetiko
• Report: International Young Rosicrucians Week 2015
• Column: The blind spot
• Symbol: Circle and point
ESSAY
• Plato and the Doctrine of Ideas

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2016 number 1

A call from the solar heart;

pentagram – basis van zielebewustzijn

3 World Images [cover, 3, 7, 64]

4 The Salt of the Earth

8 The Activity of the World Brotherhood

14 Who am I? What am I? Where do I come from?

22 A thought from Hermes

28 Make a good start

34 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

50 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket

4 The Salt of the Earth

Salt is an indispensable ingredient anywhere without which life

If we would follow the directions of the

6 The Salt of the Earth

Life from the earth or life from the solar body?

A WORD FOR THE NEAR FUTURE

It is exactly in this situation of general helplessness that a new possibility comes up

8 The Activity of the World Brotherhood

New energies which deeply touch all humanity

10 The Activity of the World Brotherhood

May a deep understanding guide us here!

A change in consciousness is forthcoming. It approaches in response to a cosmic

12 The Activity of the World Brotherhood

Article by the editors of Pentagram. See

When introducing myself, I can sense some contempt, even if it is only

Youths during an outdoor ‘Camp Doog’festival, WA, Austalia

The lonely tree in the dunes near Noverosa, Doornspijk, NL

Sunset, Essouira, Maroc © Frank Fabrice, 2011

Sunset at 348 km altitude above the Pacif-

34 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

In the mature years of his eighty year life Plato felt

36 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

38 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

From these, the most valuable cit- destructive forces already at

40 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

42 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

Given, then, the existence of a perfect

Here Plato developed and confirmed,

44 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

The Academy of Plato, mosaic at Pompeii, before 79 AD

46 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

48 Plato and his Doctrine of the Idea

to grasp this, for according to the part (which is the

The glass circle ‘Greeting to the Sun’ glistens on the

52 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket

54 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket

WE ARE A ROCK HARD I

56 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket

58 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket

cultural heritage or memory,

not even the enormous esoteric

treasure of the preceding

60 Our present day socio-economic straightjacket

The blind spot

T he ‘head’ side of the coin is the aspect that suits

This middle way involves inhaling and exhaling life in

Circle and point

The point – the turning point – the spirit

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