Ascending to the One Through Philosophy

Описание: In this final reading of Chaper 1, Uždavinys sums up his assertion that Greek philosophy has its roots in Egyptian Temple teachings, myths, and ritual practice. We've seen how he opposes contemporary understandings of philosophy as originating in or primarily focusing on analytical or hyper rational thought. Instead, he asserts that philosophy is as much a way of life - the give and take of mundane realities - as it is an intellectual undertaking. We've also seen him begin his outline of what he means by theurgic practice.

Each of the commonly known statements of Aristotle about philosophy beginning in wonder and of Plato about philosophy being a training for death, are placed in the contexts of various Egyptian religious practices, in particular the mummification process - both its preparation of the physical body and the associated mythical representation of the soul’s journey through the afterlife realms of reality.

He affirms the notion that we can become sons and daughters of God in the literal sense becoming like God, not children of God as the Christians understand it, but God-like as the Theurgists understand it. This question of becoming sons and daughters of god is obviously very controversial, and various religious traditions would find it sacrilegious. However, it’s a mainstay among theurgists and perhaps some Greek Orthodox hesycasts.

During the philosophical process of discussion, analysis, syllogism, and ascertainment of truth he says our physical and spiritual bodies are reconstructed. We leave the body behind and become intelligences, or nous, which means mind in Greek.

But he wants us to realize that there is no sharp distinction between body and soul as we are commonly told is true in Christianity of other Abrahamic religions teaching. The relationship between body and soul is more complex in Egyptian thought. The body is always interacting with the soul which vivifies it and helps it participate in mundane and cosmic activities. The body is not despised since it reflects this ongoing process of spiritual embodiment from above.

Her says the body is a hieroglyphic of the "alchemical transformation" that takes place in the philosophical process. The body in its actions in the everyday world manifests the divine ideas by way of virtue and the many thaumaturgic actions that humans perform in bringing the world to fruition and bringing about the will of the gods.

The soul’s descent and ascent into and from the material is really the action of the One, the highest dimension of reality, and not the action of an individual. Again, this will go towards his contention that the ultimate goal of the philosophical process is assimilation with the One, the Transcendent Reality.

So, philosophy makes us minds, as opposed to simply bodies. The theurgic aspect of philosophy unites us with the noetic principles - those Ideas that Plato writes about in what he calls the world of Forms and which Uzdavinys says corresponds to the Egyptian divine world - where we conform our activity to the paradigm. With theurgy, we confirm our lives to the paradigms of the celestial world where the principles of both spiritual and material realities reside.

Dialectic, the practice of question and answer, the analysis of ideas and the unraveling of true and false assumptions, the formulation of valid syllogisms - this activity and practice assimilates us to God. For the Greek and the Egyptians it is the science of purification. Platonic dialectic causes the soul to turn to and acknowledge and return to itself. He says that the rending and tearing that can go on during the engagement with others in determining the truth - the often painful process of seeing ourselves fighting with delusion and illusion to find what’s real - is based on the model of sacrifice. This sacrifice itself imitates cosmogony, the genesis and unrolling of the many worlds from spirit to materiality.

Platonic dialectic follows the sacred path of rest, procession and reversion, the process which Neoplatonists identified as the sacred cycle of the universe in its yearly advance from death to life to renewal. According to the theurgists this is how the cosmos descends from the divine and holy Good and ascends back to it once its time on the material plane is exhausted.

Once again, Uzdaviys identifies a starting point, which is to flee the material world of the body and focus instead on the unchanging and eternal ideas that comprise transcendent reality. When we do this, we move from the irrational to spiritual and rational completeness, the ultimate goal being what Plato calls the Good. We are to become wise and good people, both virtuous and knowledgeable.

What is the role of myth in this process? ...

for the rest of this introduction see: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mv4o...