Feb 14, 2025 05:20 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2025 10:14 PM by C C.)
https://antigonejournal.com/2025/02/chaldaean-oracles/
EXCERPTS: A common perception of Ancient Greek thought is that it was supremely intellectual and rational: the Greeks were into philosophy, not magic; Socrates went around annoying people by trapping them with logic, not by spouting revelations and prophecies. Like most clichés, this one has some truth in it. But Greek culture contained many elements that we would regard as non-rational.
If you look into ancient literature, you don’t have to look all that far before you start finding mysticism and magic. And if you do start looking for this sort of thing, sooner or later you will run into the Chaldaean Oracles. This is the most interesting Greek text that you’ve never heard of...
[...] It has been suggested that the Oracles were obtained from their supposed divine sources through a process of clairvoyance, and that they are effectively notes of what we would today call séances. ... The Oracles can be dated to the 2nd or perhaps the 3rd century AD. The dating depends, in part, on whether we see them as influencing or being influenced by the Platonist philosopher Numenius, who was active in the late 2nd century AD...
[...] If the text of the Oracles claims to be divine, its contents also reflect ideas that were current among human beings. ... The universe is presided over by three supreme entities, a kind of pagan Holy Trinity. There is the Father, or first Mind, who is the ultimate, perfect principle. Then there is an entity known as the second Mind or demiurge (creator). These two entities are linked by the Power of the Father, who may be identified with the goddess Hecate. There are hints that love is the principle of unity behind all things...
[...] An important feature of the Oracles is that they appear to accept the basic Platonist idea that the physical world around us – the world that we can see and touch – does not represent the totality of the cosmos. There also exists a transcendent spiritual realm which is superior to the material world...
[...] When the mystical initiates performed their rites, they claimed to see visions and hear voices. The Oracles describe supernatural apparitions that were expected to appear to the ritualist. These seem to have included encounters with the goddess Hecate...
[...] it bears noting that the Oracles have also been used by eminent creative writers of international reputation. Such figures have included the American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) and Henry David Thoreau (1817–62), as well as the great Irish poet and Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: A common perception of Ancient Greek thought is that it was supremely intellectual and rational: the Greeks were into philosophy, not magic; Socrates went around annoying people by trapping them with logic, not by spouting revelations and prophecies. Like most clichés, this one has some truth in it. But Greek culture contained many elements that we would regard as non-rational.
If you look into ancient literature, you don’t have to look all that far before you start finding mysticism and magic. And if you do start looking for this sort of thing, sooner or later you will run into the Chaldaean Oracles. This is the most interesting Greek text that you’ve never heard of...
[...] It has been suggested that the Oracles were obtained from their supposed divine sources through a process of clairvoyance, and that they are effectively notes of what we would today call séances. ... The Oracles can be dated to the 2nd or perhaps the 3rd century AD. The dating depends, in part, on whether we see them as influencing or being influenced by the Platonist philosopher Numenius, who was active in the late 2nd century AD...
[...] If the text of the Oracles claims to be divine, its contents also reflect ideas that were current among human beings. ... The universe is presided over by three supreme entities, a kind of pagan Holy Trinity. There is the Father, or first Mind, who is the ultimate, perfect principle. Then there is an entity known as the second Mind or demiurge (creator). These two entities are linked by the Power of the Father, who may be identified with the goddess Hecate. There are hints that love is the principle of unity behind all things...
[...] An important feature of the Oracles is that they appear to accept the basic Platonist idea that the physical world around us – the world that we can see and touch – does not represent the totality of the cosmos. There also exists a transcendent spiritual realm which is superior to the material world...
[...] When the mystical initiates performed their rites, they claimed to see visions and hear voices. The Oracles describe supernatural apparitions that were expected to appear to the ritualist. These seem to have included encounters with the goddess Hecate...
[...] it bears noting that the Oracles have also been used by eminent creative writers of international reputation. Such figures have included the American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) and Henry David Thoreau (1817–62), as well as the great Irish poet and Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)... (MORE - missing details)
