Proclus was born in 412 CE on 8 February. We have his birth chart (amazingly), so he's one of the few ancient Platonists whom we can honor on a birthday. I am posting this a few days early so that anyone who might want to honor him has the heads up and can think about … Continue reading Remember, Proclus’ Birthday Is On 8 February
Tag: proclus
Matter Is Not Evil
From Proclus, On Evils, §31.5-14, trans. Opsomer and Steel, with images. If matter is evil, we must choose between two alternatives: either to make the Good the cause of evil or to posit two principles of beings. For, indeed, everything that exists in any way whatever must either be a principle of complete beings or … Continue reading Matter Is Not Evil
The Body and the Beehives
Yesterday, I finished reading a translation of Akka Mahadevi's vacanas for Shiva. Vacana seems to be a specific term for a free-verse form. I had never encountered writings from the Lingayat Shiva tradition, and it was very educational for me. It turns out that, for at least over a millennium, there has been resistance to … Continue reading The Body and the Beehives
Athene, Dancing
In the Philosophical History, Damascius writes that he saw an agalma of Aphrodite in armor and that the image struck him. I had a similar, much less intense experience recently when I came across this secular-function image of Athene, La Danse Triomphale, created in 1925 by Carlo Sarrabezolles. The plaque on the image's base reads, … Continue reading Athene, Dancing
Worship and the Punishment Mindset
Recently, while checking to make sure that my scheduled posts were working properly on the account that spews out (slightly modified for length in some cases) passages from The Soul's Inner Statues with a few sleek quotations from (mostly) Platonists, I saw a TweetDeck notification that someone had quote-tweeted one of the tweets, which comes … Continue reading Worship and the Punishment Mindset
The Path to the Summit
I wish to communicate something exciting that has its origins in a conversation with a few people about the Platonic Theology (in which I learned that @barefootwisdom has memorized a lot of Proclus' hymns) and the way that the soul experiences ascent. After that conversation, I went back to the commentary and translations of Proclus' … Continue reading The Path to the Summit
Windows Can Be Mirrors
Last night, I came across a paper by Edward Watts, "The Lycians are coming: The career of Patricius, the father of Proclus," in Proclus and His Legacy. As someone who always loves personal and interpersonal anecdotes in commentaries, and who absolutely loved Damascius' Life of Isidore/Philosophical History fragments, I clicked on it, and I started … Continue reading Windows Can Be Mirrors
The Seasons and the Gods
One 🤯 moment in Proclus' Republic essays — specifically in the one on the speech of the Muses, essay 13 — is when Proclus describes the correspondences between different Gods and seasons. We are now in summer, meaning that we are in a season of Ares. Winter is for Kronos, spring for Zeus, and autumn … Continue reading The Seasons and the Gods
Internalizing Externals and Fighting One’s Way Out
The true warfare with the Giants takes place in souls: whenever reason and intellect rule in them, the goods of the Olympians and Athena prevail, and the entire life is kingly and philosophical; but whenever the passions reign, or in general the worse and earth-born elements, then the constitution within them is tyranny.Proclus, Commentary on … Continue reading Internalizing Externals and Fighting One’s Way Out
KALLISTI 