<p>For more than one thousand years, the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers of antiquity visited and revisited their primeval mythological heritage which was the living heart of their pagan religion, art and science. In earliest antiquity the inner truths of myth were held to be suitable only for those who had undergone the initiations and training of mystery cults and academies of philosophy, and were communicated in secret and guarded language; in later antiquity, circumstances forced their interpreters to become more open and commit their insights to writing. It is these writings upon which Tim Addey draws in order to present to the non-specialist reader a philosophic interpretation of the beautiful and powerful myths of the Greeks</p>

The Seven Myths of the Soul

Addey, Tim

Promethus Trust

<p>This volume presents an outline of the metaphysics of the Platonic tradition which the authors hold as having its roots in the mythic writings of Homer and Hesiod, having been developed through the Pythagorean and Orphic schools, scientifically unfolded by Plato, and received its finest written flowering in late antiquity in the works of Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus and many others.   The book is divided into two sections: in the first, introduced by Guy Wyndham-Jones, extracts from the works of ancient philosophers concerning The One and the Gods unfold the divine summit of the Platonic metaphysics.  This section especially demands more than ordinary study: each piece acts as a starting point for the deepest meditation, and calls upon the readers' deepest faculties.  he second section, by Tim Addey, aims to give the new student a framework from which to begin the serious study of the subject.  It shows how the orthodox understanding of Plato, based on the division of reality into abstract form and material manifestation is inadequate for the proper understanding of the tradition.  Instead a more subtle six-fold division of the universe is delineated as the way in which the divine sources of the universe unfold in progressive stages to the furthest extremity of things.  It explains how the universe is understood in this tradition to be a single entity, which not only proceeds outwards in an ordered way, but also returns to its source in a similar manner.</p>

Beyond the Shadows : The Metaphysics of the Platonic Tradition

Politics & Social Sciences

Wyndham-Jones, Guy and Tim Addey

Philosophy

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Books by Promethus Trust

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The Seven Myths of the Soul

Beyond the Shadows : The Metaphysics of the Platonic Tradition