The Numinous Way

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The Numinous Way – the philosophy – of pathei-mathos (πάθει μάθος) as described in the following compilation of essays represents the weltanschauung I slowly and somewhat haphazardly developed between 2006 and 2011 as a result of a personal tragedy and reflecting upon decades of peregrinations and involvements political and religious.

The Numinous Way

For this 2022 (Seventh)  edition, I have added a detailed Introduction, a new appendix, and corrected some typos.

° Prefatory Note
° Introduction – Physis, Being, and The Numinous
° Conspectus
° The Way of Pathei-Mathos – A Philosophical Compendium
° Some Personal Musings On Empathy
° Enantiodromia and The Reformation of The Individual
° Society, Politics, Social Reform, and Pathei-Mathos
° The Change of Enantiodromia
° The Abstraction of Change
° Footnotes
° Appendix I – The Principle of Δίκα
° Appendix II – From Mythoi To Empathy
° Appendix III – Towards Understanding Ancestral Culture
° Appendix IV – The Concept of Physis
° Appendix V – Notes on Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 5, 1015α
° Appendix VI – Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 1
° Appendix VII – Glossary of Terms and Greek Words
° Appendix VIII – Denotata, Empathy, And The Hermetic Tradition
° Selected Bibliography

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Image credit: NASA, Apollo 17

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Axiomata: Empathy And Pathei-Mathos

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A compilation of essays which in their own way express the axiomata which are the basis for the philosophy of pathei-mathos, a/k/a The Numinous Way Of Pathei-Mathos

Empathy And Pathei-Mathos: Axiomata

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Alchemy And The Hermetic Tradition

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A 231 page compilation of some of my writings about hermeticism and alchemy, some of which relate to my philosophy of pathei-mathos.

Alchemy And The Hermetic Tradition
(pdf)

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The Way Of Pathei-Mathos – A Précis

Heraclitus Fragment B1

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The Way Of Pathei-Mathos – A Précis

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What I have previously described as the ‘philosophy of pathei-mathos’ and the ‘way of pathei-mathos’ is simply my own weltanschauung, a weltanschauung developed over some years as a result of my own pathei-mathos. Thus, and despite whatever veracity it may or may not possess, it is only the personal insight of one very fallible individual, a fallibility proven by my decades of selfishness and by my decades of reprehensible extremism both political and religious. Furthermore, and according to my admittedly limited understanding and limited knowledge, this philosophy does not – in essence – express anything new. For I feel (and I use the word ‘feel’ intentionally) that I have only re-expressed what so many others, over millennia, have expressed as result of (i) their own pathei-mathos and/or (ii) their experiences/insights and/or (iii) their particular philosophical musings.

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Related:

° The Numinous Way Of Pathei-Mathos

° Religion, Empathy, and Pathei-Mathos

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Misunderstanding Myatt’s Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

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Misunderstanding Denotata In Myatt’s Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

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° A Particular Perceiveration
° The Mysticism Of Mr Myatt
° Gentlemanly And Lady-like Behaviour
° Footnotes

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Denotata, Empathy, And The Hermetic Tradition

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Denotata, Empathy, And The Hermetic Tradition
(pdf)

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° The Numinous And Denotata
° Empathy, The Hermetic Tradition, And Our Human Physis
° The Uncertitude Of Knowing

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Image credit:

Beginning of tractate XI from the book Mercvrii Trismegisti Pœmandres, Paris: 1554.

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The Mystic Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

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Mystic Philosophy Of David Myatt
(Third Edition, pdf)

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Contents:
I. A Modern Mystic: David Myatt And The Way of Pathei-Mathos
II. A Modern Pagan Philosophy
III. Honour In The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos
IV. An Overview of The Philosophy of Pathei-Mathos
Part One: Anti-Racism, Extremism, Honour, and Culture
Part Two: Humility, Empathy, and Pathei-Mathos
V. Classical Paganism And A New Metaphysics
Appendix I. A Note On Greek Terms In The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos
Appendix II. Towards Understanding Ancestral Culture
Appendix III. From Mythoi To Empathy: Toward A New Appreciation Of The Numinous
Appendix IV. Preface from ‘One Perceiveration’
Appendix V. Appreciating Classical Literature
Appendix VI. Physis And Being: An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos
Appendix VII. The Concept of Physis

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One Perceiveration

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One Perceiveration
(pdf)

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From the Preface:

Following suggestions from several readers of both my translations of and commentaries on eight tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum [1] and my book The Numinous Way Of Pathei-Mathos, [2] I have collected here several essays of mine, published between 2012 and 2019, concerning my methodology in regard to translating and employing certain Ancient Greek words.

Hopefully this collection will go some way toward revealing to readers the reasoning behind why I, for example, use σωφρονεῖν in preference to σωφρονέω/σωφροσύνη and attribute to that Greek word a particular philosophical meaning – “a fair and balanced personal, individual, judgement” (that is, thoughtful reasoning, or wisdom) – rather than the English meaning now associated with the transliteration sophrosyne which is “soundness of mind, moderation”, thus avoiding the English word “mind” with all its post-classical and modern interpretations philosophical and otherwise.

Another example is pathei mathos – πάθει μάθος – which is used not in accord with Greek grammatical (inflective) usage, but in accord with the English language use of an expression, with my writings thus employing expressions such as “a pathei-mathos”, “that pathei-mathos”, “which pathei-mathos”, “our accumulated pathei-mathos”, “my pathei-mathos”, and of course “the philosophy of pathei-mathos”.

A further example is σοφόν in preference to σοφός, when the sense implied is not the usual “skilled”, or “learned” or “wise” but rather what lies beyond and what was/is the genesis of those denotata: which is the quiddity, the physis, with the denotata (σοφός: skill, learning, wisdom) a presencing [3] in an individual of that wordless quiddity, [4] that physis. [5]

In these and other instances the words are used in an Anglicized, non-inflective, way to suggest a specific philosophical term or concept different from what the original Greek does or might suggest, ancient or modern, as in the matter of σωφρονέω/σωφροσύνη. That is, they are intended to be assimilated into the English language either in their transliterated form (for instance sophronein) or in their Greek form (for instance σωφρονεῖν) and refer not to some supra-personal “idea” or ideation – ἰδέᾳ/εἶδος – or abstraction but rather to individuals.

I attempted to explain the philosophical principles behind my methodology and weltanschauung in my book The Numinous Way Of Pathei-Mathos, and in my two monographs Classical Paganism And The Christian Ethos [6] and Tu Es Diaboli Ianua. [7] Which principles are (i) emphasising the individual, the personal, the unique and empathic nature of perceiveration – of apprehending and understanding Being and beings, and our own physis – over and above abstractions and ideations and thus over and above denotata – and (ii) that the classical principles or virtues of τὸ καλόν, ἀρετή, and τὸ ἀγαθὸν related to and were defined by the deeds, the lives, of individuals and not to something supra-personal such as some idea or ideation or dogma or faith or ideology, and were well-expressed in the term καλὸς κἀγαθός, which implies those who conduct themselves in a certain manner and who thus manifest – because of their innate physis or through pathei-mathos or through a certain type of education or learning – a particular personal character.

But as I noted in one of the essays included here: does my idiosyncratic use of Ancient Greek and Latin terms make my philosophy confusing, difficult to understand and difficult to appreciate? Perhaps.

However, in regard to translations such as tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Gospel of John, when I have used an original phrase – for example “quidditas of semblance” in the Pœmandres tractate, and, in the Gospel of John, translated οὐρανός as Empyrean rather than the conventional Heaven, to give just two examples from the many – I have explained my interpretation in the associated commentary.

For reasons which the essays included here may make clear, I have added a slightly revised version of my Glossary of The Philosophy of Pathei-Mathos: Vocabulary, Definitions, and Explanations, and also the Introduction to my translation of and commentary on chapters I-V of the Gospel of John. [8]

David Myatt
2020

[1] Corpus Hermeticum: Eight Tractates. 2017. ISBN 978-1976452369

[2] The Numinous Way of Pathei-Mathos. ISBN 978-1484096642

[3] Presencing: from the classical Latin praesentia – meaning “having or implying actual presence”, as manifesting (as being presenced) in a locality or an individual. Qv. my commentary on Ιερός Λόγος 2, et sequentia, of the Corpus Hermeticum.

[4] The scholastic term quiddity derives from the 11th/12th century post-classical Latin quidditas, and avoids using the term “essence” (οὐσία) which has post-classical and modern connotations. As I noted in my commentary on tractate XI:2 of the Corpus Hermeticum,

In respect of οὐσία, qv. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 5, 1015α:

ἐκ δὴ τῶν εἰρημένων ἡ πρώτη φύσις καὶ κυρίως λεγομένη ἐστὶν ἡ οὐσία ἡ τῶν ἐχόντων ἀρχὴν κινήσεως ἐν αὑτοῖς ᾗ αὐτά: ἡ γὰρ ὕλη τῷ ταύτης δεκτικὴ εἶναι λέγεται φύσις, καὶ αἱ γενέσεις καὶ τὸ φύεσθαι τῷ ἀπὸ ταύτης εἶναι κινήσεις. καὶ ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως τῶν φύσει ὄντων αὕτη ἐστίν, ἐνυπάρχουσά πως ἢ δυνάμει ἢ ἐντελεχείᾳ.

Given the foregoing, then principally – and to be exact – physis denotes the quidditas of beings having changement inherent within them; for substantia has been denoted by physis because it embodies this, as have the becoming that is a coming-into-being, and a burgeoning, because they are changements predicated on it. For physis is inherent changement either manifesting the potentiality of a being or as what a being, complete of itself, is.

See also my Some Notes on Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 5, 1015α, at https://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/aristotle-metaphysics-1015α/

[5] In respect of physis, refer to Appendix I: The Concept Of Physis

[6] Classical Paganism And The Christian Ethos. 2017. ISBN 978-1979599023

[7] Tu Es Diaboli Ianua. 2017. ISBN 978-1982010935

[8] The translation and commentary are available at https://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/gospel-according-to-john/

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Contents:

Preface.
On Translating Ancient Greek.
A Note On Greek Terms In The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos.
Appreciating Classical Literature.
An Indebtedness To Ancient Greek And Greco-Roman Culture.
Concerning The Gospel Of John.
On Minutiae And The Art Of Revision.
Concerning ἀγαθός and νοῦς in the Corpus Hermeticum.
Glossary of The Philosophy of Pathei-Mathos.
Appendix I – The Concept Of Physis.
Appendix II – Towards Understanding Ancestral Culture.

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Image credit:
The Day’s Consecration – from a painting by Richard Moult.

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Physis And Being

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Physis And Being
An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Pathei-Mathos

 
The philosophy of pathei-mathos is based on four axioms: (i) that it is empathy and pathei-mathos which can wordlessly reveal the ontological reality both of our own physis [1] and of how we, as sentient beings, relate to other living beings and to Being itself; (ii) that it is denotatum [2] – and thus the abstractions deriving therefrom [3] – which, in respect of human beings, can and often do obscure our physis and our relation to other living beings and to Being; (iii) that denotatum and abstractions imply a dialectic of contradictory opposites and thus for we human beings a separation-of-otherness; and (iv) that this dialectic of opposites is, has been, and can be a cause of suffering for both ourselves, as sentient beings, and – as a causal human presenced effect – for the other life with which we share the planet named in English as Earth.

For, as mentioned in a previous essay,

“empathy and pathei-mathos incline us to suggest that ipseity is an illusion of perspective: that there is, fundamentally, no division between ‘us’ – as some individual sentient, mortal being – and what has hitherto been understood and named as the Unity, The One, God, The Eternal. That ‘we’ are not ‘observers’ but rather Being existing as Being exists and is presenced in the Cosmos. That thus all our striving, individually and collectively when based on some ideal or on some form – some abstraction and what is derived therefrom, such as ideology and dogma – always is or becomes sad/tragic, and which recurrence of sadness/tragedy, generation following generation, is perhaps even inevitable unless and until we live according to the wordless knowing that empathy and pathei-mathos reveal.” [4]

In essence, empathy and pathei-mathos lead us away from the abstractions we have constructed and manufactured and which abstractions we often tend to impose, or project, upon other human beings, upon ourselves, often in the belief that such abstractions can aid our understanding of others and of ourselves, with a feature of all abstractions being inclusion and exclusion; that is, certain individuals are considered as belonging to or as defined by a particular category while others are not.

Over millennia we have manufactured certain abstractions and their assumed opposites and classified many of them according to particular moral standards so that a particular abstraction is considered good and/or beneficial and/or as necessary and/or as healthy, while its assumed dialectical opposite is considered bad (or evil), or unnecessary, or unhealthy, and/or as unwarranted.

Thus in ancient Greece and Rome slavery was accepted by the majority, and considered by the ruling elite as natural and necessary, with human beings assigned to or included in the category ‘slave’ a commodity who could be traded with slaves regarded as necessary to the functioning of society. Over centuries, with the evolution of religions such as Christianity and with the development in Western societies of humanist weltanschauungen, the moral values of this particular abstraction, this particular category to which certain human beings assigned, changed such that for perhaps a majority slavery came to be regarded as morally repugnant. Similarly in respect of the abstraction designated in modern times by such terms as “the rôle of women in society” which rôle for millennia in the West was defined according to various masculous criteria – deriving from a ruling and an accepted patriarchy – but which rôle in the past century in Western societies has gradually been redefined.

Yet irrespective of such developments, such changes associated with certain abstractions, the abstractions themselves and the dialectic of moral opposites associated with them remain because, for perhaps a majority, abstractions and ipseity, as a criteria of judgment and/or as a human instinct, remain; as evident in the continuing violence against, the killing of, and the manipulation, of women by men, and in what has become described by terms such as “modern slavery” and “human trafficking”.

In addition, we human beings have continued to manufacture abstractions and continue to assign individuals to them, a useful example being the abstraction denoted by the terms The State and The Nation-State [5] and which abstraction, with its government, its supra-personal authority, its laws, its economy, and its inclusion/exclusion (citizenship or lack of it) has come to dominate and influence the life of the majority of people in the West.

Ontologically, abstractions – ancient and modern – usurp our connexion to Being and to other living beings so that instead of using wordless empathy and pathei-mathos as a guide to Reality [6] we tend to define ourselves or are defined by others according to an abstraction or according to various abstractions. In the matter of the abstraction that is The State there is a tendency to define or to try to understand our relation to Reality by for example whether we belong, are a citizen of a particular State; by whether or not we have an acceptable standard of living because of the opportunities and employment and/or the assistance afforded by the economy and the policies of the State; by whether or not we agree or disagree with the policies of the government in power, and often by whether or not we have transgressed some State-made law or laws. Similarly, in the matter of belief in a revealed religion such as Christianity or Islam we tend to define or understand our relation to Reality by means of such an abstraction: that is, according to the revelation (or a particular interpretation of it) and its eschatology, and thus by how the promise of Heaven/Jannah may be personally obtained.

             Empathy and pathei-mathos, however, wordlessly – sans denotatum, sans abstractions, sans a dialectic of contradictory opposites – uncover physis: our physis, that of other mortals, that of other living beings, and that of Being/Reality itself. Which physis, howsoever presenced – in ourselves, in other living beings, in Being – is fluxive, a balance between the being that it now is, that it was, and that it has the inherent (the acausal) quality to be. [7]

This uncovering, such a revealing, is of a knowing beyond ipseity and thus beyond the separation-of-otherness which denotatum, abstractions, and a dialectic of opposites manufacture and presence. A knowing of ourselves as an affective connexion [8] to other living beings and to Being itself, with Being revealed as fluxive (as a meson – μέσον [9] – with the potentiality to change, to develope) and thus which (i) is not – as in the theology of revealed religions such as Christianity and Islam – a God who is Eternal, Unchanging, Omnipotent [10], and (ii) is affected or can be affected (in terms of physis) by what we do or do not do.

This awareness, this knowing, of such an affective connexion – our past, our current, our potentiality, to adversely affect, to have adversely affected, to cause, to having caused, suffering or harm to other living beings – also inclines us or can incline us toward benignity and humility, and thus incline us to live in a non-suffering causing way, appreciate of our thousands of years old culture of pathei-mathos. [11]

In terms of understanding Being and the divine, it inclines us or can incline us, as sentient beings, to apprehend Being as not only presenced in us but as capable of changing – unfolding, evolving – in a manner dependant on our physis and on how our physis is presenced by us, and by others, in the future. Which seems to imply a new ontology and one distinct from past and current theologies with their anthropomorphic θεὸς (god) and θεοὶ (gods).

An ontology of physis: of mortals, of livings beings, and of Being, as fluxive mesons. Of we mortals as a mortal microcosm of Being – the cosmic order, the κόσμος – itself [12] with the balance, the meson, that empathy and pathei-mathos incline us toward living presenced in the ancient Greek phrase καλὸς κἀγαθός,

“which means those who conduct themselves in a gentlemanly or lady-like manner and who thus manifest – because of their innate physis or through pathei-mathos or through a certain type of education or learning – nobility of character.” [13]

Which personal conduct, in the modern world, might suggest a Ciceronian-inspired but new type of civitas, and one

“not based on some abstractive law but on a spiritual and interior (and thus not political) understanding and appreciation of our own Ancestral Culture and that of others; on our ‘civic’ duty to personally presence καλὸς κἀγαθός and thus to act and to live in a noble way. For the virtues of personal honour and manners, with their responsibilities, presence the fairness, the avoidance of hubris, the natural harmonious balance, the gender equality, the awareness and appreciation of the divine, that is the numinous.” [14]

With καλὸς κἀγαθός, such personal conduct, and such a new civitas, summarising how the philosophy of pathei-mathos might, in one way, be presenced in a practical manner in the world.

David Myatt
2019

This essay is a revised and edited version of a reply sent to an academic
who enquired about the philosophy of pathei-mathos

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Further Reading:
The Numinous Way Of Pathei-Mathos. ISBN 978-1484096642

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Notes

[1] I use the term physis – φύσις – ontologically, in the Aristotelian sense, to refer to the ‘natural’ and the fluxive being (nature) of a being, which nature is often manifest, in we mortals, in our character (persona) and in our deeds. Qv. my essay Towards Understanding Physis (2015) and my translation of and commentary on the Poemandres tractate in Corpus Hermeticum: Eight Tractates (2017).

[2] As noted elsewhere, I use the term denotatum – from the Latin denotare – not only as meaning “to denote or to describe by an expression or a word; to name some-thing; to refer that which is so named or so denoted,” but also as an Anglicized term implying, depending on context, singular or plural instances. As an Anglicized term there is generally no need to use the inflected plural denotata.

[3] In the context of the philosophy of pathei-mathos the term abstraction signifies a particular named and defined category or form (ἰδέᾳ, εἶδος) and which category or form is a manufactured generalization, a hypothesis, a posited thing, an assumption or assumptions about, an extrapolation of or from some-thing, or some assumed or extrapolated ideal ‘form’ of some-thing.

In respect of denotatum, in Kratylus 389d Plato has Socrates talk about ‘true, ideal’ naming (denotatum) – βλέποντα πρὸς αὐτὸ ἐκεῖνο ὃ ἔστιν ὄνομα, qv. my essay Personal Reflexions On Some Metaphysical Questions, 2015.

[4] Personal Reflexions On Some Metaphysical Questions.

[5] Contrary to modern convention I tend to write The State instead of “the state” because I consider The State/The Nation-State a particular abstraction; as an existent, an entity, which has been manufactured, by human beings, and which entity, like many such manufactured ‘things’, has been, in its design and function, changed and which can still be changed, and which has associated with it a presumption of a supra-personal (and often moral) authority.

In addition, written The State (or the State) it suggests some-thing which endures or which may endure beyond the limited lifespan of a mortal human being.

[6] ‘Reality’ in the philosophical sense of what (in terms of physis) is distinguished or distinguishable from what is apparent or external. In terms of ancient Hellenic and Western Renaissance mysticism the distinction is between the esoteric and the exoteric; between the physis of a being and some outer form (or appearance) including the outer form that is a useful tool or implement which can be used to craft or to manufacture some-thing such as other categories/abstractions. With the important ontological proviso that what is esoteric is not the ‘essence’ of something – as for example Plato’s ἰδέᾳ/εἶδος – but instead the physis of the being itself as explicated for instance by Aristotle in Metaphysics, Book 5, 1015α,

ἐκ δὴ τῶν εἰρημένων ἡ πρώτη φύσις καὶ κυρίως λεγομένη ἐστὶν ἡ οὐσία ἡ τῶν ἐχόντων ἀρχὴν κινήσεως ἐν αὑτοῖς ᾗ αὐτά: ἡ γὰρ ὕλη τῷ ταύτης δεκτικὴ εἶναι λέγεται φύσις, καὶ αἱ γενέσεις καὶ τὸ φύεσθαι τῷ ἀπὸ ταύτης εἶναι κινήσεις. καὶ ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως τῶν φύσει ὄντων αὕτη ἐστίν, ἐνυπάρχουσά πως ἢ δυνάμει ἢ ἐντελεχείᾳ

Given the foregoing, then principally – and to be exact – physis denotes the quidditas of beings having changement inherent within them; for substantia has been denoted by physis because it embodies this, as have the becoming that is a coming-into-being, and a burgeoning, because they are changements predicated on it. For physis is inherent changement either manifesting the potentiality of a being or as what a being, complete of itself, is.

That is, as I noted in my essay Towards Understanding Physis, it is a meson (μέσον) balanced between the being that-it-was and the being it has the potentiality to unfold to become.

In respect of “what is real” – τῶν ὄντων – cf. the Poemandres tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum and especially section 3,

φημὶ ἐγώ, Μαθεῖν θέλω τὰ ὄντα καὶ νοῆσαι τὴν τούτων φύσιν καὶ γνῶναι τὸν θεόν

I answered that I seek to learn what is real, to apprehend the physis of beings, and to have knowledge of theos [qv. Corpus Hermeticum: Eight Tractates, 2017]

[7] Qv. Towards Understanding Physis, 2015.

[8] I use the term affective here, and in other writings, to mean “having the quality of affecting; tending to affect or influence.”

[9] Qv. footnote [6]. In terms of ontology a meson is the balance, the median, existing between the being which-was and the being which-can-be.

[10] This understanding of Being as fluxive – as a changement – was prefigured in the mythos of Ancient Greece with the supreme deity – the chief of the gods – capable of being overthrown and replaced, as Zeus overthrew Kronos and as Kronos himself overthrew his own father.

[11] As explained in my 2014 essay Education And The Culture of Pathei-Mathos, the term describes“the accumulated pathei-mathos of individuals, world-wide, over thousands of years, as (i) described in memoirs, aural stories, and historical accounts; as (ii) have inspired particular works of literature or poetry or drama; as (iii) expressed via non-verbal mediums such as music and Art, and as (iv) manifest in more recent times by ‘art-forms’ such as films and documentaries.”

This culture remembers the suffering and the beauty and the killing and the hubris and the love and the compassion that we mortals have presenced and caused over millennia, and which culture

“thus includes not only traditional accounts of, or accounts inspired by, personal pathei-mathos, old and modern – such as the With The Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the poetry of people as diverse as Sappho and Sylvia Plath – but also works or art-forms inspired by such pathei-mathos, whether personal or otherwise, and whether factually presented or fictionalized. Hence films such as Monsieur Lazhar and Etz Limon may poignantly express something about our φύσις as human beings and thus form part of the culture of pathei-mathos.”

[12] κόσμον δὲ θείου σώματος κατέπεμψε τὸν ἄνθρωπον, “a cosmos of the divine body sent down as human beings.” Tractate IV:2, Corpus Hermeticum.

Cf. Marsilii Ficini, De Vita Coelitus Comparanda, XXVI, published in 1489 CE,

Quomodo per inferiora superioribus exposita deducantur superiora, et per mundanas materias mundana potissimum dona.

How, when what is lower is touched by what is higher, the higher is cosmically presenced therein and thus gifted because cosmically aligned.

Which is a philosophical restatement of the phrase “quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius” (what is above is as what is below) from the Latin version, published in 1541 CE, of the medieval Hermetic text known as Tabula Smaragdina.

[13] The quotation is from my Classical Paganism And The Christian Ethos, 2017.

[14] The quotation is from my Tu Es Diaboli Ianua: Christianity, The Johannine Weltanschauung, And Presencing The Numinous, 2017.

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cc David Wulstan Myatt 2019
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) License
and can be copied, distributed, and commercially published,
according to the terms of that license.

All translations by DW Myatt

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A pdf version of this article is available: Physis And Being

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Abstractions And The Modern World

Earth: Apollo 17 (NASA)

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Abstractions, The Way Of Pathei-Mathos, And The Modern World

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A Child Of Gaia

Heraclitus Fragment B1

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A collection of some of my recent writings which endeavour to express and explain my philosophy of pathei-mathos and such personal rememberings, feelings, and intuitions of mine, as may be relevant to understanding, and placing into context, my post-2011 writings.

A Child Of Gaia

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Related:
° The Numinous Way Of Pathei-Mathos
° Religion, Empathy, and Pathei-Mathos

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Greek And Latin Translations

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A collection of some of my translations of texts in Ancient and Hellenistic Greek, from the Agamemnon of Aeschylus to the Corpus Hermeticum to chapters 1-5 of the Gospel of John, as well as a few translations from Latin including Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis, the Latin version of the Arabic text Lawh al-Zumurrud. Many of the translations are relevant to my philosophy of pathei-mathos,

Some Greek And Latin Translations

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° The Agamemnon of Aeschylus
° Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus
° Sophocles: Antigone
° Homer: The Odyssey Books One, Two, Three
° Sappho: Poetic Fragments
° The Gospel According to John: Translation And Commentary, Chapters 1 – 5
° Corpus Hermeticum: Tractates I, III, IV, VI, VIII, XI, XII, XIII
° The Beatitudes: The Gospel According To Matthew, 5:1–10
° Anaximander
° Heraclitus: Some Translations and Notes
° Notes On De Vita Coelitus Comparanda
° Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis

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Image Credit:
Gold funerary tablet (c. 200 BCE) found at Eleutherna, Crete,
of the kind presumed to be associated with an aural ἱερός λόγος (esoteric mythos),
all of which funerary items have inscriptions similar to the following:
Γῆς παῖς εἰμι καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος
(I am a child of Gaia and the starry heavens)

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Research, Primary Sources, And Pathei-Mathos

NASA Blue Marble Earth Mosaic

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Research, Primary Sources, And Pathei-Mathos

Ξ Ξ Ξ

Aristotle, Anaximander, And Virtue

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A passage from the Nicomachean Ethics relates to what I still find to be the vexatious issues of exegesis, of intangibility, of naming or of not naming, since what a name, a denotata, denotes, not only can and does change from century to century, from one no longer existing society to another newer one, but also has a tendency to separate and divide one being or existent from others leading to the development of categories.

Aristotle, Anaximander, And Virtue

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The Numinous Way of Pathei-Mathos

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The Numinous Way of Pathei-Mathos
(pdf)

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For this 2022 (Seventh)  edition, I have added a detailed Introduction, a new appendix, and corrected some typos.

° Prefatory Note
° Introduction – Physis, Being, and The Numinous
° Conspectus
° The Way of Pathei-Mathos – A Philosophical Compendium
° Some Personal Musings On Empathy
° Enantiodromia and The Reformation of The Individual
° Society, Politics, Social Reform, and Pathei-Mathos
° The Change of Enantiodromia
° The Abstraction of Change
° Footnotes
° Appendix I – The Principle of Δίκα
° Appendix II – From Mythoi To Empathy
° Appendix III – Towards Understanding Ancestral Culture
° Appendix IV – The Concept of Physis
° Appendix V – Notes on Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 5, 1015α
° Appendix VI – Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 1
° Appendix VII – Glossary of Terms and Greek Words
° Appendix VIII – Denotata, Empathy, And The Hermetic Tradition
° Selected Bibliography

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Image Credit:
Attic red-figure vase, c. 500-450 BCE, depicting The Horae. Antikensammlung, Berlin

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