Speaker 1: You see Something's going to happen? What?
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Speaker 2: In this episode, I got myself and I got the
Speaker 2: Mad Scientist occult reject Lisa with me. We will be
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Speaker 2: And now I'll hand it over to Lisa.
Speaker 1: So, when we started looking at occultists and scientists of
Speaker 1: the ancient and historical world, we notice that some of
Speaker 1: the most influential works were inspired by Empedocles. In fact,
Speaker 1: some of these highly regarded occult as, scientists, philosophers, you
Speaker 1: name it, like Kepler, Galen, Aristotle, Plato, all of their
Speaker 1: impactful theories stemmed from theories that were first brought to
Speaker 1: light by Empedocles.
Speaker 2: Also, Empedocles was the first to talk about how the
Speaker 2: eyes worked. He was also the first, if not the
Speaker 2: only one at the time, who made the analogy between
Speaker 2: the eyes and aphrodite as well what we see being
Speaker 2: the result of vision originating within and projecting outward. After
Speaker 2: looking into his work, we noticed how influential he seemed
Speaker 2: to be in Croley's work, which we will touch on
Speaker 2: as well. And here I just wanted to include at
Speaker 2: the beginning I quote by him that I really liked
Speaker 2: nourished in the seas of black, springing back springing blood
Speaker 2: where above all is located what humans call thought, for
Speaker 2: the blood around the heart is for humans their thought.
Speaker 2: Pedocles was a Greek pre socratic philosopher for Macragus, a
Speaker 2: Greek city located in the region of Sicily. His contributions
Speaker 2: to philosophy are particularly well known for originating the influential cosmochony.
Speaker 2: Screwed it up again? How do you say that word?
Speaker 2: Cosmogonicy theory of the four classical elements For those who
Speaker 2: may not be familiar with the term, cosmogony, said that right.
Speaker 2: It refers to any theoretical model or explanation concerning the
Speaker 2: origin and development of the cosmos or the universe as
Speaker 2: a whole. The classical elements, according to Empedocles, typically referred
Speaker 2: to the elements used in rich craft and occultism today earth, water, air,
Speaker 2: and fire, which he believed were the building blocks of
Speaker 2: all matter. He referred to them as the four roots,
Speaker 2: indicating their fundamental nature. Additionally, Impedically undertook experiments that led
Speaker 2: him to assert at least to his own liking that
Speaker 2: air was indeed a distinct substance. He made this observation
Speaker 2: through a very simple demonstration. When a bucket was inverted
Speaker 2: in water, it did not fill completely with water, as
Speaker 2: a pocket of air remained trapped inside, illustrating that air
Speaker 2: occupies space and exists separately from water. Empedocles was the
Speaker 2: first philosopher to propose the concept of the four classical
Speaker 2: elements as a cohesive set fire, earth, air, and water.
Speaker 2: Pedoicles was well known for his philosophical stance against the
Speaker 2: practice of animal sacrifice, as well as the killing of
Speaker 2: animals for the purpose of food consumption. He also had
Speaker 2: a distinctive doctrine of reincarnation, which was quite unique for
Speaker 2: his time. He is generally regarded as the last Greek
Speaker 2: philosopher who chose to record his profound ideas in verse form,
Speaker 2: which was rather different for the times. Luckily, a portion
Speaker 2: of his work survived, offering some insights into his thinking.
Speaker 1: So, if I may, we're going to take you on
Speaker 1: a little tangent of this whole thing about verse. So
Speaker 1: bear with us. But I think it's extremely and it
Speaker 1: ties in really really interestingly. Okay, So I want to
Speaker 1: expand a little bit more on the style of writing
Speaker 1: in terms of delivering it in the verse form. Empedicallys
Speaker 1: during the fifth century BC E wrote his philosophical programs
Speaker 1: and ideas in hexameter verse. This would include his most
Speaker 1: influential four part Theory of Roots and Love and Strife principles,
Speaker 1: which is going to go on to be highly influential
Speaker 1: and pretty much foundational to philosophy, mysticism, medicine, cosmology, and religion.
Speaker 1: He also wrote in verse form for his work on purifications,
Speaker 1: which was Impedicle's poem of Ritual Cleansing, which was also
Speaker 1: written in hexmeter verse, and also transmit in which this
Speaker 1: hexameter verse form used gives such a spectacular effect to
Speaker 1: what empedically is. This equation of ritual animal sacrifice to
Speaker 1: human sacrifice was like something familiar to Amagedmond's slaughter of Iphingia.
Speaker 1: I probably didn't say that, right, but something like that.
Speaker 1: So okay, So hexameter kind of break it down. I'm
Speaker 1: sure most of y'all are familiar with it, but kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, bear with us. So hexameter is a line
Speaker 1: of verse consisting of six metrical feet, So you have
Speaker 1: a metrical line of versus consisting of six feet or
Speaker 1: foot or pulse. It's going to differ from the iambic
Speaker 1: pentamin meter, which is five ims versus six. So English
Speaker 1: poetry from Jeffrey Chaucer is that you say it. Chaucer
Speaker 1: introduce iambic pentameter to the English language in the fourteenth century.
Speaker 1: William Shakespeare, John Milton of Paradise Loss we're all well
Speaker 1: poets who use iamic pentameter, as well as Percy VC.
Speaker 1: Shelley and even Jim Morrison was also known to use
Speaker 1: iambic pentameter in his songs. So hexameter had been tried
Speaker 1: in the English poetry, but it really never took off,
Speaker 1: only because it was hard to adapt the hexameter rhythm
Speaker 1: to the English language. So it's a little bit difficult,
Speaker 1: and that's why the popularity never gained. Poetry in and
Speaker 1: of itself flows from syllable to syllable, each pair of syllables,
Speaker 1: creating a pattern known as a poetic meter. When a
Speaker 1: verse line is made up of two syllables flowing from
Speaker 1: one unaccented beat to an accented beat, it creates a
Speaker 1: rhythmic pattern called iambic meter, So the term iambic originally
Speaker 1: was applied to the quantitative meter in classical poetry. Meters
Speaker 1: in English were accentual syllabic verse, whereas ancient Greek and
Speaker 1: Latin meter was a rhythm created through the use of
Speaker 1: alternating short and long syllables. You also see this in
Speaker 1: Vedic and Sanskrit in that they are said to also
Speaker 1: utilize this rhythmic pattern meter or form of it in
Speaker 1: their written stuff. So when you have a parasyllables and
Speaker 1: they're arranged in a short followed by a long or
Speaker 1: unstressed followed by a stress pattern, you now have a
Speaker 1: iambic or foot type of cadence. Okay, So why all this? So?
Speaker 1: Hexameter is the oldest form known in Greek poetry. It
Speaker 1: was the standard epic meter in classical Greek and Latin literature.
Speaker 1: So we have the Ilia, the Odyssey, Hymns of Orpheus,
Speaker 1: and so forth. Where it gets interesting is that, according
Speaker 1: to mythology in Greece, hexameter was invented by Fenmono, I
Speaker 1: think that's how you say it, who was a daughter
Speaker 1: of Apollo and the first Pithia of delf. This was
Speaker 1: around five hundred three hundred BC, or give or take.
Speaker 1: So the oracle of Delphi delivered her prophecies in the
Speaker 1: form of dactylic hexameter verse. The priests would then translate
Speaker 1: the utterances of the pythia or the oracle herself into
Speaker 1: this metrical pattern of Greek poetry. Consisting of lines with
Speaker 1: six feet, the hexameter verse were deliberately ambiguous, requiring careful
Speaker 1: interpretation by the recipient, who could only understand the true
Speaker 1: meaning of the prophecy. The practice of delivering prophecies in
Speaker 1: hexameter verse was a key aspect to ancient Greek oracle
Speaker 1: of Delphi, which was extremely important to the rituals in
Speaker 1: their culture and therefore highlighting the importance of the poetic language. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the main things that we found that I
Speaker 1: thought was very symbolic to add is that it was
Speaker 1: said that if prophecies were not given in hexameter verse,
Speaker 1: then they were regarded as potentially not authentic. So this
Speaker 1: is where you get hexameter verse as being extremely paramount
Speaker 1: to the utterances of the divine to the regular people.
Speaker 1: So it is said that Empedocles wrote his responses even
Speaker 1: those like to paramendies in hexameter, whether it was a
Speaker 1: response to what he had claimed or other things.
Speaker 2: It's interesting and Iambic got me thinking of i am
Speaker 2: or Chroley's lamb, and of prophecies or words relayed by
Speaker 2: supernatural beings came in the form of verse hexameter iambic.
Speaker 2: Then we could be hypothesize that possibly all words from
Speaker 2: beyond have a similar pattern. Could it be possible that
Speaker 2: the words of iowas or Lamb also be in verse pattern?
Speaker 2: And would it be possible that Crowley, considering himself the
Speaker 2: beasts of revelation something beyond the natural, could he be
Speaker 2: so bold as he likes to be as to write
Speaker 2: his poems in verse? You know? And if and if
Speaker 2: it Impedoicles wrote his poems which were to be used
Speaker 2: during rituals in the hexameter verse, would to be out
Speaker 2: of like the realm of possibility that poems Crowley wrote,
Speaker 2: which were to also be used during rituals also be
Speaker 2: written in meter a verse. I'd say, you know, the
Speaker 2: hexagram rituals are supposed to be used with poems written
Speaker 2: hexameter verse, And could the pentagram rituals, and you know,
Speaker 2: in poems written in I would they be written in
Speaker 2: iambic pentameter. You know, there's something to think about, because
Speaker 2: even when it comes to rituals, for me in the
Speaker 2: in the Oto, and really for any other kind of
Speaker 2: secret society that's based on like the kabbala or ceremonial magic,
Speaker 2: you're going to have the pentagram and the hexagram ritual
Speaker 2: going to be very very big rituals to use. And
Speaker 2: you know, I just wonder if there's a correlation between
Speaker 2: that and the that style of writing.
Speaker 1: Plus it was used throughout the Vetek and Greek and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and again like what you had said,
Speaker 2: especially with the pentometer, I mean, if that's how they
Speaker 2: were deciphering something, you know, being worth to listen to.
Speaker 1: And like remember during this time, the philosophers and malthematicians
Speaker 1: and poets like Empedocles, they were still using alpha numerical language.
Speaker 1: And so if it is, if it was in ancient
Speaker 1: Greek culture and poetry in their rituals was extremely important,
Speaker 1: I think it begs the question did metered verse poetry
Speaker 1: serve as a code or did it serve as a
Speaker 1: way to give power or energy to the words and
Speaker 1: the poems used during these rituals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would question even another cipher to onto it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now we're going to talk a little bit of
Speaker 2: his life and death. While the exact dates of Empedocles's
Speaker 2: birth and death are unknown, most agree that he was
Speaker 2: born in the early fifth century b c. In the
Speaker 2: Greek city of Akragus present day Sicily. Modern scholars believe
Speaker 2: the accuracy of the accounts that he came from a
Speaker 2: noble family. So it's's point to him as the son
Speaker 2: of a certain Meton, which is a Greek mathematician, and
Speaker 2: therefore born into an important and wealthy local aristocratic family.
Speaker 2: How convenient it is said that his godfather, also named Empatoicles,
Speaker 2: had been victorious in a horse race at the Olympia
Speaker 2: and seventy first OLYMPIAD.
Speaker 1: So many texts do state that his grandfather was extremely wealthy.
Speaker 1: He kept horses and was well remembered as a victor
Speaker 1: in the Olympic Games. And so you see games as
Speaker 1: being plural like you almost wonder if he was something
Speaker 1: of a consistent contributor to these games. This claim also
Speaker 1: agrees with historical contexts of the area. At that time.
Speaker 1: Akragus was the southern central Sicilian Polis of modern day Agrigento.
Speaker 1: I think that's how you say it. For contacts. Arcus
Speaker 1: lies on the plateau, surrounded by cliffs, overlooking the two rivers,
Speaker 1: Drago and Arcus Rivers, and to the north are a
Speaker 1: set of twin peaks, which of course reminds me of
Speaker 1: twin peaks. Origento was a wealthy ancient city founded in
Speaker 1: five hundred and eighty one BC, and it lies just
Speaker 1: northwest of Malta. During Impedocles's lifetime, Arcus had gone from
Speaker 1: a tyrannical reign to an oligarchy to the new governmental
Speaker 1: system of democracy. And considering that these contrasting but significant
Speaker 1: political transformations, it's nodded or it's given a nod that
Speaker 1: Impededicles from his riotings tended to lean more towards a
Speaker 1: democratic governing. It's also claimed that, aside from being known
Speaker 1: as a philosopher, Empedocles was also known as a politician
Speaker 1: he championed against He also dismantled the oligarchy of the
Speaker 1: thousand thousand being in quotation because he rejected kingship. Also,
Speaker 1: Empededicles's father was also said to have forestalled rising tyranny.
Speaker 1: So you start to see that Empedocles, potentially from the
Speaker 1: paternal exposure, was potentially a talented orator and had his
Speaker 1: ties into politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do mention, and I think we might even
Speaker 2: bring it up in here that he did have a
Speaker 2: lot of political writing. It's just unfortunately they can't seem
Speaker 2: to find it anymore. It's been destroyed. Primary sources of
Speaker 2: information on the life of Empedocles come from the Hellenistic period,
Speaker 2: several centuries after his own death, and long after any
Speaker 2: reliable evidence about his life would have been lost, destroyed,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Modern scholars generally believe that these biographical details,
Speaker 2: including his chronologically impossible tutelage under Pathegoris and his employment
Speaker 2: as a doctor and miracle worker, were fabricated from interpretations
Speaker 2: of Empedocles's poetry, which does tend which does tend to
Speaker 2: happen a lot to the biographies written during this time.
Speaker 1: I think one of the underlying trends that you'll find
Speaker 1: is a constant scholarly debate when looking into Empaticles. The
Speaker 1: details of his biography, as you mentioned, is one of
Speaker 1: a few at the very top of the list of
Speaker 1: this debate. For example, it is also said that Empedocles
Speaker 1: was a student of Parmenides of Elliott and later associated
Speaker 1: with an Axagoras and Pythagoras, which we'll discuss a little
Speaker 1: more later on in the episode. But my reason for
Speaker 1: bringing this up is that from the work that has
Speaker 1: survived and looking at it chronologically, it might be a
Speaker 1: bit of a stretch that for Empedocles to have personally
Speaker 1: met all three. However, with that being said, much of
Speaker 1: what has survived of Empedocles's work reflects that it was
Speaker 1: more than just him. Being familiar with their teachings only
Speaker 1: suggests that and evidently points to actual engagement with Paramenodes
Speaker 1: and an an Exogorus and Pythagoras' theories.
Speaker 3: That's hard, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was just looking it
Speaker 3: up again and already forgot how to say an Exagoras,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you, yeah, because I was like, just
Speaker 3: in case I have to say that myself. According to
Speaker 3: Aristotle and Pedicles, died at the age of sixty. Some
Speaker 3: writers have him living up to the age of one
Speaker 3: hundred and nine. There are amidst concerning his death. A
Speaker 3: tradition which is traced to Heracles Ponticus represented him as
Speaker 3: having been removed from the earth, whereas others had him
Speaker 3: perishing in the flames of Mount Etna. He was also
Speaker 3: he was also said to have died in Peloponnese, Greece.
Speaker 1: Iff ice of that correctly, So kind of going to
Speaker 1: expand a little bit of what you've said. There's a
Speaker 1: significant number of apoca full stories collected during the time
Speaker 1: of Empedocles and Antiquity, and most can be found in
Speaker 1: the book Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Letertius,
Speaker 1: which is regarded as one of the most detailed sources
Speaker 1: of Empedtocles's life. So in addition to recording his claims
Speaker 1: of divine status and magical powers, the book goes at
Speaker 1: length into discussing the various accounts or stories of how
Speaker 1: Empedocles was said to have died. His death in particular
Speaker 1: seemed to have attracted so much attention, and there are
Speaker 1: many theories of how he died. Empedocles was said to
Speaker 1: have died in so many different ways, so like the
Speaker 1: first one was he drowned when he fell overboard from
Speaker 1: a ship. Another one was that he hung himself. A
Speaker 1: third was that he died after breaking his leg when
Speaker 1: he fell from a carriage. And then the one that
Speaker 1: he is the most famous for, which you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: and the one the source of the legend for Empedocles
Speaker 1: was that Empededicles died by throwing himself into the crater
Speaker 1: of Mount Edna and Sicily. And it's claimed that Empedocles
Speaker 1: had learned that he was going to die, or the
Speaker 1: news of his eminent death was so great that he
Speaker 1: wanted to appear as though he had he as he
Speaker 1: wanted to die as though he had been hypothesized, So
Speaker 1: he leapt into the crater so that the people would
Speaker 1: believe his body had vanished, and that he would then
Speaker 1: turn into an immortal god. The volcano, however, threw back
Speaker 1: out one of his trademark bronze sandals, revealing the deceit.
Speaker 1: So I thought that's pretty classic.
Speaker 2: Another legend says that he threw himself into the volcano
Speaker 2: to prove his disciples that he was immortal. He believed
Speaker 2: he would come back as a god after being consumed
Speaker 2: by the fire. Horace also refers to the try the
Speaker 2: tragic death of Empedocles in his work as Poetica In
Speaker 2: a Caromnippus, a comedic and thought provoking dialogue written by
Speaker 2: the second century Setius Lucian of sam Soda. The final
Speaker 2: fate of Empedocles is reevaluated. Rather than being incinerated in
Speaker 2: the intense fires of Mount Etna, he is depicted as
Speaker 2: being carried up into the heavens by a volcanic volcanic eruption,
Speaker 2: and this retelling Empedocles not only survives, but continues his
Speaker 2: existence on the moon, where he sustains himself by feeding
Speaker 2: on the nourished jew that collects there.
Speaker 1: Interest, which is food for the moon, right that you'll
Speaker 1: always saying.
Speaker 2: Now, some of these things I do want to say,
Speaker 2: like I do wonder. Yeah, obviously some of them sound
Speaker 2: like they could just be fantastical and that could you know,
Speaker 2: literally be what it is, or could it be more occult,
Speaker 2: you know kind of stories. This is my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that's that's interesting. So while many scholars have
Speaker 1: dramatized him as a self styled god, I kind of
Speaker 1: want to revisit what you said earlier in touch Upon
Speaker 1: and rather emphasize that his contemporaries regarded him as indeed
Speaker 1: more more than a mere mortal, So you have Aristotle
Speaker 1: writing about how he hailed him as the inventor of rhetoric.
Speaker 1: It is said that Empedocles's poetry rivaled that of Homer Galen,
Speaker 1: who's well known for the discovery and description of the
Speaker 1: optic Nerve regarded him as a founder of Italian medicine.
Speaker 1: Lucretius held that Empedocles's hexameter poetry was one that you
Speaker 1: should hold in the highest of esteem, and he held
Speaker 1: it in highest esteem and admiration. Empedocles was the founder
Speaker 1: of the Sicilian school of medicine and was claimed to
Speaker 1: be a great physician, and this is evidence conveyed in
Speaker 1: the Hippocratics, fifth century of the current era book on
Speaker 1: ancient medicine and basically details a critique of Impedocles's alliance
Speaker 1: of the study of nature and medicine. And it is
Speaker 1: also said within this book itself that he was known
Speaker 1: to have brought a dead woman back to life impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Based on the surviving fragments of his work, modern
Speaker 2: scholars generally believe that Empedocles was directly responding to parmenides
Speaker 2: doctrine of monism and was likely acquainted with the work
Speaker 2: of an Exagris. Philosophical monism is the belief that all
Speaker 2: of the sensible world is of one basic substance, in
Speaker 2: being uncreated and indestructible. Anaxagris was a pre Socratic Greek
Speaker 2: philosopher who introduced the concept of noos, a cosmic mind
Speaker 2: as an ordering force. He also gave several noble scientific
Speaker 2: accounts of natural phenomena, including the notion of pan spermia
Speaker 2: that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.
Speaker 2: He deduced a correct explanation for eclipses and described the
Speaker 2: Sun as a fiery mass larger than Peloponnese, and also
Speaker 2: attempted to explain rainbows and meteors. You know, I will
Speaker 2: have to say, I mean, isn't it kind of wild
Speaker 2: how like they were talking about this stuff back then
Speaker 2: or theorizing on it. They actually just find that interesting
Speaker 2: that these ideas that they were even ideas, Because I
Speaker 2: don't even know how to say it, but like I
Speaker 2: do find it impressive considering, like I feel, like like
Speaker 2: what people think about today. Many later accounts of his
Speaker 2: life claim that impedically studied with the Pythagoreans on the
Speaker 2: basis of his doctrine of reincarnation, although he may have
Speaker 2: instead learned this from a local tradition rather than directly
Speaker 2: from the Pythagoreans. Now a little bit on his writings
Speaker 2: and work. Most of him, Pedicle's work has not survived intact.
Speaker 2: There's only about two poems. The two poems on Nature
Speaker 2: and on Purifications together comprise and comprise a total of
Speaker 2: five thousand lines. However, only about five hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: lines of his poetry survived, quoted in fragments by later
Speaker 2: ancient sources. So that's unfortunate. Out of the five thousand
Speaker 2: line thing, about five hundred and fifty ten yeah, yeah, ten,
Speaker 2: ten point five or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So like to base you know, theories, you're basing
Speaker 1: your theory of impedoicles on ten percent of his.
Speaker 2: Work or it's like, uh, when it was found, like
Speaker 2: if they got raped in pillage, was only like ten
Speaker 2: percent left to show us? What about that too?
Speaker 1: So in the last twenty years, scholars have debated whether
Speaker 1: these two poems were part of one big philosophical project
Speaker 1: or if they were two separate works. It's been long held,
Speaker 1: like a long held belief that these two poems are
Speaker 1: completely two separate pieces of work, and the reason for
Speaker 1: that is because the two topics are very distinct from
Speaker 1: each other, and as alleged by Diogenies third century of
Speaker 1: the current era biography and Empedoicles, But it's an earlier
Speaker 1: publication which was found dating back all the way to
Speaker 1: the first second century current era, surfaced and showed to
Speaker 1: contain lines of on purifications as part of the on
Speaker 1: nature work. So why does this matter? Because if these
Speaker 1: two poems were part of a single project, then the
Speaker 1: theory arises that the physical doctrine on purifications is not
Speaker 1: separate from the religious one, which was on nature, and
Speaker 1: that both themes are much more related than previously thought,
Speaker 1: because that would mean that the history of the structure,
Speaker 1: information of the physical world, animals and plants within it
Speaker 1: have a lot to do with morality and purification, at
Speaker 1: least in terms of rituals or in terms of the
Speaker 1: way he was trying to describe it, that they were
Speaker 1: important enough to be inclusive. So if the surviving five
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty lines of poetry as depicted in older
Speaker 1: editions of Empedocles, about four hundred fifty lines were ascribed
Speaker 1: to on Nature, which outlined his philosophical system and goes
Speaker 1: into explaining not only the nature and history of the universe,
Speaker 1: including his theory of the four classical elements, but also
Speaker 1: the theories on causation, perception, thought, as well as explanation
Speaker 1: of terrestrial phenomenon and biological processes. The other one hundred
Speaker 1: lines of poetry, which have been typically ascribed to On
Speaker 1: Purifications was taken to be a poem simply about ritual purification,
Speaker 1: and they contain all of his religious, moral and ethical thought,
Speaker 1: so many early editors thought that it was a poem
Speaker 1: that offered a mythical account of the world based on
Speaker 1: Empedocles's philosophical system.
Speaker 2: On Nature was written to address three audiences. The muse Calliope,
Speaker 2: I'm saying that correctly makes an appeal to the divine
Speaker 2: for inspiration. Second one his disciple Pausanius, I'm saying that
Speaker 2: correctly promising him mortal intelligent intelligence beyond all others, and
Speaker 2: it's an attempt to cultivate the master pupil relationship. And
Speaker 2: the third reason was for the community of a kragus,
Speaker 2: and it goes on to discuss metaphysics or the study
Speaker 2: of the nature of being and cosmogony, influenced by the
Speaker 2: coming together and separation of Empedocles's four basic elements via
Speaker 2: the forces of love and strife. Now, when we get
Speaker 2: into the elements with him, uh yeah, we will get
Speaker 2: into a little bit about the about Empedocles and the elements,
Speaker 2: or as he called them roots. And first I'll read
Speaker 2: some of his own stuff. And this is from Fragment
Speaker 2: seventeen twofold. Is what I shall say. For at one
Speaker 2: time they I e. The elements, grew to be only
Speaker 2: one out of many. At another time again they separate
Speaker 2: to be many out of one. And double is the
Speaker 2: birth of mortal things, double their death, for the one
Speaker 2: is both born and destroyed by the coming together of
Speaker 2: all things, while the other, inversely, when they are separated,
Speaker 2: is nourished and flies apart. And these the elements incessantly
Speaker 2: exchange their places, continually, sometimes by love, all coming together
Speaker 2: into one, and sometimes again, each one carried off by
Speaker 2: the hatred of strife, and adversely the one separating again.
Speaker 2: They end up being many to that extent they become,
Speaker 2: and they do not have a steadfast lifetime. But in
Speaker 2: so far as they incessantly exchange their places continually. To
Speaker 2: that extent, they are always immobile in a circle. And
Speaker 2: Peticals established four elements which make all structures in the
Speaker 2: world fire, air, water, and earth. Peticles call these four
Speaker 2: elements roots, which he also identified with the mythical names
Speaker 2: of Zeus, Hera, Nestus, and a Donius. Now Here are
Speaker 2: the fourfold roots of everything, enlivening Hera Hayes, shining Zeus,
Speaker 2: and nests moistening mortal springs with tears. That was from him.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yeah, So while Empedocles never use the term element,
Speaker 1: Aristotle credits Impedocles with being the first to make a
Speaker 1: clear distinction of these four elements, which the word element
Speaker 1: may have first been used by Plato. I think he
Speaker 1: used roots instead of elements, but it was Aristola that
Speaker 1: he was saying. That he is the one that basically
Speaker 1: came up with it. Also, it has been said that
Speaker 1: because Empedocles gave these roots names of the divine, it
Speaker 1: is claimed that he was implying that each of them
Speaker 1: had an active nature and not going to be or not.
Speaker 1: They should not just be regarded as inert matter. One
Speaker 1: interpreter describes his philosophy as asserting that nothing new comes
Speaker 1: or can come into being. The only change that can
Speaker 1: occur is a change in the juxtaposition of element with element.
Speaker 1: This theory of the four elements became the standard dogma
Speaker 1: for the next two thousand years. And so if you
Speaker 1: think about you know nothing can come from nothing. It's
Speaker 1: essentially pretty much stating the first law of their own dynamics,
Speaker 1: where energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So it's
Speaker 1: pretty impactful.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, that's impressive. According to Empedicalles, the four
Speaker 2: elements are both brought into union imparted from one another
Speaker 2: by two divine powers, love and strife filodes and nicos.
Speaker 2: One thing I do want to add, you find it interesting.
Speaker 2: Love does match eye in Jamatia, and strife does match sillery,
Speaker 2: So I just wanted to throw it in there. Love
Speaker 2: serves as the force responsible for the attraction and cohesion
Speaker 2: of different forms of what we now refer to as matter,
Speaker 2: while strife acts as the driving force behind their inevitable
Speaker 2: separation and division. If we consider that these four elements
Speaker 2: make up the entirety of the universe, then the interplay
Speaker 2: of love and strife provides a compelling explanation for the variation, diversity,
Speaker 2: and harmony observed within it. These two opposing forces can
Speaker 2: be understood as both attractive and repulsive, embodying the push
Speaker 2: and pull dynamics present in nature. As the interact the
Speaker 2: relative dominance of love and strife waxes and wanes, creating
Speaker 2: a balance. However, it is important to note that neither
Speaker 2: force ever entirely escapes the influence or imposition of.
Speaker 1: The other, and that's an important thing to kind of
Speaker 1: keep in mind. Was this balance that he tried to
Speaker 1: portray as well as it was a waxing and waning.
Speaker 1: So when we refer to the waxing and waning as
Speaker 1: describing how love and strife influence the roots, it almost
Speaker 1: sounds analogous to the moon and how it also waxes
Speaker 1: and wanes and exerts its influence, especially over the water.
Speaker 1: Also in Fragment seventeen, it is said to have a
Speaker 1: symmetry or balance to it, so you have birth and
Speaker 1: death coming to be passing away. It also describes the
Speaker 1: dominance of one force over the other and then their
Speaker 1: exchanging of their places continuously, almost personifying like a cycle
Speaker 1: or the image of a cycle. So without finding and
Speaker 1: also because of that cycle, you also picture a lack
Speaker 1: of finality or triumph over the other. There's just only
Speaker 1: moments of dominance with continued alteration.
Speaker 2: I thought biompedicalles on that idea is there was a
Speaker 2: time when the pure elements and the two powers coexisted
Speaker 2: in a condition of rest and inertness in the form
Speaker 2: of a sphere. The elements existed together in their purity,
Speaker 2: without mixture and separation, and the uniting power of love
Speaker 2: predominated in the sphere. The separating power of strife guarded
Speaker 2: the extreme edges of the sphere. Since that time, strife
Speaker 2: gained more sway and the bond which kept that pure
Speaker 2: elementary substances together, and the sphere became dissolved. The elements
Speaker 2: became the world of phenomena we see today, full of
Speaker 2: contrast and oppositions operated on by both love and strife,
Speaker 2: and Pedicles assumed cyclical universe, whereby the elements returned and
Speaker 2: prepare the formation of the sphere for the next period
Speaker 2: of the universe. Em Peticles also attempted to explain that
Speaker 2: separation of elements, the formation of Earth and sea, of
Speaker 2: Sun and moon, and of atmosphere. Empedocles argues that these
Speaker 2: routes and forces do not pass away, nor is anything
Speaker 2: added to them, according to him, for these are all
Speaker 2: equal and identical in age, but each one presides over
Speaker 2: a different honor. Each one has its own character, and
Speaker 2: by turns they dominate while the time revolves. And besides these,
Speaker 2: nothing at all is added, nor is lacking. For if
Speaker 2: they perished entirely, they would no longer be in this
Speaker 2: whole here. What could increase it in coming from where?
Speaker 2: And how could it be completely destroyed? Since nothing is
Speaker 2: empty of these? But these are themselves, but running the
Speaker 2: ones through the others, they become now this, now that,
Speaker 2: and each time are continually similar.
Speaker 1: This description of permanence and there's click events is extremely
Speaker 1: similar to the terminology used by Paramenodes poem, where Paramenodes
Speaker 1: argues that the all is one, and it didn't come
Speaker 1: to be, it always just was. Also, the movement and
Speaker 1: separation of these elementary substances within the sphere reminds me
Speaker 1: of Genesis one, verse six through nine, where the earth
Speaker 1: is described as first being formless until the waters were
Speaker 1: separated by a dome or an expanse by God gathering
Speaker 1: the water in the sky in one place and then
Speaker 1: letting the dry ground disapprear. And as we go further
Speaker 1: into cosmogony, you'll see how that's further reemphasized.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Now a little bit about cosmogony and how Empedoicles
Speaker 2: use it. A quick definition of cosmogony involves the study
Speaker 2: of the origin of the cosmos, end or universe, and
Speaker 2: how it all came to be. Cosmogeny, according to Empedocles,
Speaker 2: is the result of the to play between the four roots,
Speaker 2: the elements, and the two forces love and strife, with
Speaker 2: each root having its own specific nature corresponding to how
Speaker 2: we even view them today. For example, fire and water
Speaker 2: are traditionally viewed as antagonistic, whereas fire and air are
Speaker 2: viewed as compatible. But by adding in the forces love
Speaker 2: and strife, Empedocles indicates that the specific nature of the
Speaker 2: roots alone would not be sufficient enough to enable organization
Speaker 2: of the cosmos. Here we get into inner workings of
Speaker 2: Empedocles's theory.
Speaker 1: So the force love instills attraction within the opposing roots
Speaker 1: that naturally would not have come together had it not
Speaker 1: been for love, bringing them together into harmony. However, love
Speaker 1: is also responsible for pulling apart the roots that are similar,
Speaker 1: but not through the means of repulsion. The goal of strife,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, is to reply the attraction instilled
Speaker 1: in opposing roots by love with repulsion. In doing this,
Speaker 1: strife causes these opposing roots to repel, and thus similar
Speaker 1: roots come together. Both love and strife are in constant conteination,
Speaker 1: waxing and waning in strengths from the beginning of the
Speaker 1: cosmos and its inhabitants coming into being and then passing
Speaker 1: away throughout history. So traditionally, and Pedocoles' section of cosmogony
Speaker 1: has been viewed as a two part symmetrical cycle endlessly
Speaker 1: repeating itself. Roots united, which is love dominant, and strife
Speaker 1: enters and begins to separate the roots until fully distinct,
Speaker 1: which now strife is dominant, and then at which point
Speaker 1: love re enters and begins to unite them until fully united.
Speaker 1: During these half cycles of separation or unification where one
Speaker 1: is not dominant the other, but there's like this middle ground,
Speaker 1: cosmogeny or the genesis of cosmo and zoogeny, which is
Speaker 1: a generation of animals happens. So it's in these middle
Speaker 1: moments that you have the birth of the cosmos or
Speaker 1: the birth of the animals. Empedocles describes the stage where
Speaker 1: love is dominant and the roots are unified and intermingled
Speaker 1: into a sphere here. The sphere is the initial stage
Speaker 1: in formation of the cosmos, but not the cosmos itself.
Speaker 1: When strife begins to insinuate itself into the sphere, it
Speaker 1: results in the separation of the roots into identifiable masses
Speaker 1: of earth, air, water, and fire in the cosmos, resulting
Speaker 1: in earth mass at the center of the sphere, water
Speaker 1: more or less surrounding the earth, air forming the next layer,
Speaker 1: with fire at the outer edge of the sphere. The
Speaker 1: ancients recognize this geocentric formation as the representation of our cosmos,
Speaker 1: and also because it was strife that separated the roots
Speaker 1: within the sphere, it was believed that hosmogeny as described
Speaker 1: here was dependent on the influence of strife.
Speaker 2: Strife Hepedicles also describes a time when strife has separated
Speaker 2: the roots. This separation is total and is the opposite
Speaker 2: pull from the sphere, which is a total mixture under
Speaker 2: the influence of love and a little thing taken from him.
Speaker 2: When strife has reached the deepest depth of the vortex,
Speaker 2: and love has come to be in the center of
Speaker 2: the world. Under her dominion, all these the elements come
Speaker 2: together to be only one, each one coming from a
Speaker 2: different place, not ruskally but willingly.
Speaker 1: So. This description points to how strife begins separating the roots,
Speaker 1: which at the beginning is through the means of a vortex,
Speaker 1: and that the heaviest root settles in the middle, and
Speaker 1: the lightest root, which would be fire, is pushed to
Speaker 1: the edge of the sphere or the periphery. We kind
Speaker 1: of see this sometimes when you like centrifuge fluids or whatever,
Speaker 1: like when you're dealing with blood or whatever in the lab.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to insert that.
Speaker 2: I think you made an example that I used to
Speaker 2: try to understand what you were saying.
Speaker 1: Actually, when when I started reading that, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's like when we spin down blood, the separation of
Speaker 1: like the white blood cells a plasma and the red
Speaker 1: blood cells reblow cells being the heavy right. It is
Speaker 1: said that the dominance of strife can be characterized by
Speaker 1: whirling motion, which is how we've come to know it.
Speaker 1: This particular piece also describes the ending rule of strife
Speaker 1: and the re emergence of Love's rule as it begins
Speaker 1: to insinuate itself back into the elements and roots. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of expound upon the whole vortex
Speaker 1: thing with them saying with empedically saying that strife begins
Speaker 1: through the means of a vortex. It calls to mind
Speaker 1: vortex mouth in that vortex mouth, just really quickly and oversimplified.
Speaker 1: Definition is basically a system of numbers explaining the essence
Speaker 1: of form as a sphere revealing a spiral line over time. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the swirling pattern itself represents the flow or vibrational
Speaker 1: energy of information within the universe that in turn exerts
Speaker 1: an influences as so, and it is connected to the
Speaker 1: spiral patterns that we see repeated throughout nature. So kind
Speaker 1: of like an imprint or a fingerprint of this vortex
Speaker 1: spiraling through the ether or the cosmos, what have you.
Speaker 1: On another note, Pythagoras believed that numbers, Marie. His famous
Speaker 1: quote is numbers as all were the fundamental building blocks
Speaker 1: of reality, and that they held mystical significance reflected in
Speaker 1: geometrical patterns. So if we put these two together, because
Speaker 1: Empedocles was said to be a student of Pythagoras, and
Speaker 1: filtered through the lens of sacred geometry, we get the
Speaker 1: idea of vortex or vortices that start to signal the
Speaker 1: possibility of a deeper mystical connection between numbers and the universe.
Speaker 1: It would then echo that the connections recorded are imprinted
Speaker 1: as patterns found in nature, and we see this repeated
Speaker 1: over and over, whether it's a spiral pattern of the
Speaker 1: Milky Way, or hurricanes or something in the plant systems
Speaker 1: that you see it kind of whirling around. So these
Speaker 1: interpretations of the cycle formed by alternating ruling forces, whether
Speaker 1: it's strife or love, is another point of scholarly debate.
Speaker 1: The description of strife separation of roots and pedoicles fragments
Speaker 1: first producing cosmos, followed by the complete separation of the
Speaker 1: roots with no presence of the other to point of
Speaker 1: suspending all movement, points to the theory that another or
Speaker 1: a second cosmogeny is required to reverse the process, and
Speaker 1: thus under the unity of love, the fundamental principle of
Speaker 1: symmetry is reinforced. So you have this balancing type of
Speaker 1: image that comes to mind. However, because evidence of Empedocles's
Speaker 1: description of a second cosmogony has yet to be found
Speaker 1: in this particular piece or his poem. It is or
Speaker 1: was traditionally assumed that he didn't support a theory of
Speaker 1: a second cosmogony, and that he just didn't go that
Speaker 1: way yet in Aristotle's writings, Aristotles strongly argued that Empedocles
Speaker 1: was committed to a second cosmogony, but that he had
Speaker 1: yet to theoretically figure out how it happened or how
Speaker 1: it was to be, So maybe that he didn't write
Speaker 1: about it, but he believed that there was, he just
Speaker 1: hadn't come to the point to where he could theoretically
Speaker 1: talk about it. Despite this, scholars have branded in Pedocles's
Speaker 1: theory as a single cosmogony type theory, and I think
Speaker 1: it's because it would echo what all the other Presocratic
Speaker 1: philosophers philosophers were saying at the time and what they believed.
Speaker 1: But if we look at the argument that Aristotle makes,
Speaker 1: it further sets Empedocles and his theories apart from the
Speaker 1: others rather than just blended in with the ones at
Speaker 1: that time. And when you think about it, you know
Speaker 1: that this is a common threat. Thinkers who have ideas
Speaker 1: and theories outside the norm bear the fate of either
Speaker 1: having their ideas or theories blended or worsely, hardly remembered
Speaker 1: throughout history at all. So in the case of Empedocles,
Speaker 1: not only were his ideas and theories blended, but they
Speaker 1: were hardly discussed. Yet some of those most influential thinkers
Speaker 1: in history were heavily influenced by Empedocles and echo his philosophies.
Speaker 1: One such thinker might have been Jesus of Nazareth. And
Speaker 1: the reason we say this is because the use of
Speaker 1: the word roots to conceptualize elements or the nature of matter,
Speaker 1: as used by Empedocles, was also said to have been
Speaker 1: used by Jesus to describe nature's cyclical coming together and
Speaker 1: then dissolving, according to the Gnaustic text of the Gospel
Speaker 1: of Mary Magdalen. So here's an excerpt of that. Then
Speaker 1: will matter be destroyed or not? This was when the
Speaker 1: apostles were asking Jesus what he had seen and if
Speaker 1: he could explain more about what he had seen. The
Speaker 1: Savior said, every nature, every form, every creature exists in
Speaker 1: and with each other. But they'll dissolve again into their
Speaker 1: own roots. Because the nature of matter dissolves into the
Speaker 1: nature alone, anyone who has ears to hear should hear.
Speaker 1: So going back to the dissolving of nature as being
Speaker 1: a part of a cycle points to the theory, and
Speaker 1: Pedocles was alluding to five hundred years prior potentially, which
Speaker 1: is part of his second cosmogony theory that.
Speaker 2: Is really interesting. Empedocles attempted to integrate two opposing views
Speaker 2: of existence developed by Parmenides and Heraclitus. Parmenides conceived the
Speaker 2: ultimate existence as a permanent, unchanging being and Heraclitus say
Speaker 2: his name as ever changing flow or process. To Empedoicles,
Speaker 2: the Parmidian view was logically appealing and the other one
Speaker 2: was in accord with personal experiences. While Parmenides understood the
Speaker 2: ultimate reality as homog genus, permanent and unchanging single entity,
Speaker 2: Empedocles comprehended it as the combination of the four permanent
Speaker 2: and unchanging elements. These roots are both material and spiritual,
Speaker 2: and Pedocles's conception of the ultimate reality has intrinsic dynamics
Speaker 2: dynamos dynamism which the Parmiedian concept of the ultimate reality
Speaker 2: lacked one thing I will say, even when it comes
Speaker 2: down to even magic. I mean, when you look at
Speaker 2: the elements, you will look at them as being in
Speaker 2: like an earthly form, and then you could look at
Speaker 2: them as starting to be like spiritual stuff or even
Speaker 2: like archetypes of thought. So I mean you find that interesting.
Speaker 2: How that does kind of carry over still with magic
Speaker 2: and occultism.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was like what they said earlier,
Speaker 1: it was a personification to indicate that it had energy,
Speaker 1: it had some sort of you know, sentience to it,
Speaker 1: oh speak, So that's why it was given like a
Speaker 1: personality to yes be identified by.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Empedocles's worldview was that of a cosmic cycle of eternal
Speaker 1: change growth indicay, in which the two personified cosmic forces
Speaker 1: love and strive, engage in an eternal battle for supremacy.
Speaker 1: Following similar ethics and psychology of pythagorists, em Pedicles believed
Speaker 1: in transmigration of souls and vegetarianism. Important to note his
Speaker 1: philosophy was influenced by what was being practice at the
Speaker 1: time religious wise and other magical practices also included in
Speaker 1: on nature, Empedocles goes on to explain how the force
Speaker 1: and combinations of roots exert their influence on zoogyny. Humans, plants,
Speaker 1: and animals went from formless to having a defined form
Speaker 1: such as a neck, or dual but separate limbs, eyes,
Speaker 1: sexual reproduction. When I read this, it reminded me of
Speaker 1: what biology teaches something an event called the Cambrian explosion,
Speaker 1: and it's a point in time about five hundred and
Speaker 1: forty million years ago if you adhere to that right,
Speaker 1: that all complex life forms suddenly appear in the fossil record.
Speaker 1: And so it goes from these formless type organisms to
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a period of rapid evolution where
Speaker 1: dual but separate limbs appear, compound eyes or a peer,
Speaker 1: and sexual reproduction among the different life forms or physiological
Speaker 1: features of these life forms appear on the planet.
Speaker 2: Thank you, And now we'll go on to a little
Speaker 2: bit of ethics and the journey of the soul. When
Speaker 2: it comes to ethics and the journey of the soul,
Speaker 2: Empedocles does speak of daemons and the transmigration of souls.
Speaker 2: Plutarch cites the following fragment as coming from the beginning
Speaker 2: of Empedocles's philosophy, and this is a considered fragment. There
Speaker 2: is a decree of necessity, ratified long ago by God's
Speaker 2: eternal and sealed by broad oaths, that whenever one, in
Speaker 2: error from fear, defiles his his own limbs, having by
Speaker 2: his era made false the oath he swore damons to
Speaker 2: whom life long lasting is appointed, he wanders from the
Speaker 2: blessed ones for three times countless years, being born throughout
Speaker 2: the time, as all kinds of mortal forms, exchanging one
Speaker 2: hard way of life for another. For the force of
Speaker 2: air pursues him into the sea, and the sea spits
Speaker 2: him out onto the Earth's surface. Earth casts him in
Speaker 2: the rays of the blazing sun, and sun into the
Speaker 2: eddies of air. One takes him from another, and all
Speaker 2: abhore him. I too, am now one of these, in
Speaker 2: exile from the gods, and a wanderer, having put my
Speaker 2: trust in raving strife. Traditionally, Plutarch's attribution of this fragment
Speaker 2: to on nature was assumed to be incorrect and was
Speaker 2: placed in the Purifications instead. However, from the eva of
Speaker 2: the Strausburg Fragments, it seems that it may be Plutarch
Speaker 2: was correct, since they contain a description of the details
Speaker 2: of the sin, and Pedoicles accuses himself of and in
Speaker 2: the fragments of lines five through six, alas that merciless
Speaker 2: day did not destroy me sooner before I devise with
Speaker 2: my clause terrible deeds for the sake of God. In
Speaker 2: Fragment one fifteen, and Pedoicles describes himself as a daimon,
Speaker 2: a being to whom long life has been granted, who
Speaker 2: has committed the sin of meat eating and bloodshed, and
Speaker 2: consequently is punished by banishment from the company of the
Speaker 2: immortal gods. The banishment lasts three myriads of years, either
Speaker 2: three times countless years of thirty thousand years. In either case,
Speaker 2: he must atone for his sin by being repeatedly reincarnated
Speaker 2: into all the different living forms of the different orders
Speaker 2: of nature Fragment one seventeen. Elsewhere, he says, for before now,
Speaker 2: I have been at some time a boy and a girl,
Speaker 2: bush bird, and a mute fish in the sea Fragment
Speaker 2: one forty six. There are others two numbered among the daemons,
Speaker 2: those who at the end come among men on earth
Speaker 2: as prophets, minstrels, physicians and leaders, and from these they
Speaker 2: arise as God's highest in honor. Now that that actually
Speaker 2: find that line very impressive, because he really nailed it
Speaker 2: for the twenty twenties. Wow.
Speaker 1: So, relating back to the thirty thousand years and this
Speaker 1: quote that you mentioned, Empedocles is said to have claimed
Speaker 1: that daemons are not only transient and able to incarnate
Speaker 1: into plant, animal, and human life, but can bring me
Speaker 1: wandering in these forms for thirty thousand seasons. He further
Speaker 1: goes on to emphasize that this transmigration is a period
Speaker 1: of exile on earth, of suffering and loss, and hence
Speaker 1: therefore the importance of escape so that the daemon could
Speaker 1: return to god like status. These incarnations form a ladder,
Speaker 1: with the highest order being the laurel and the Lion.
Speaker 1: I think we've heard that somewhere before, as we have
Speaker 1: recently too. This claim of his to being a daemon
Speaker 1: was more of a reference to being a divine being
Speaker 1: who was who was banished and an almost regression of
Speaker 1: lift by being forced to suffer and endure successive incarnations
Speaker 1: in a pure factory journey of all the different orders
Speaker 1: of nature and elements of the cosmos, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: but now as human. He believed he had a chief,
Speaker 1: the final and perfect state of nature, and would therefore
Speaker 1: be reborn next as an immortal. Almost like you know,
Speaker 1: you have to start off at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: restaurant and then work your way up to be an owner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's not clear whether we
Speaker 2: are meant to imagine the daemon's as entirely separate entity
Speaker 2: or as people who began as ordinary mortals, but having
Speaker 2: purified themselves and having achieved perfection and now approaching divine status.
Speaker 2: The a lot of reading would perhaps make more sense
Speaker 2: in terms of Empedocles's didactic ethical mission. If we are
Speaker 2: all potentially perfectible, then his purificatory teaching becomes more crucial.
Speaker 2: This is often interpreted as a poem focused on the
Speaker 2: theme of ritual purification, or possibly a poem that contains
Speaker 2: all his extensive religious and ethical contemplations. Now we're going
Speaker 2: to get to psychology, and I wanted to backtrack a
Speaker 2: little on the quote alas that the pitiless day did
Speaker 2: not destroy me earlier, which has been referred to as
Speaker 2: the modified nomic wisdom of not to be born is
Speaker 2: best to make light of Empedocles' transgression of meatating.
Speaker 1: This particular fragment, which has been commonly attributed to on
Speaker 1: purifications but is now widely accepted that it comes from
Speaker 1: on nature, points to the fundamental unity of what has
Speaker 1: long been looked at as physical and ritual doctrine. Here
Speaker 1: is where we get a peek into Empedocles as viewing
Speaker 1: vegetarianism as the antidote to cannibalism or animal eating. Also
Speaker 1: on the same fragment, it shows similar stances against bay
Speaker 1: leaves and beans. Interestingly enough, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember this when we covered Pythagoras. But Pythagoras and
Speaker 1: his followers were his cult. We're strictly against the consuming
Speaker 1: of beans because they believed that it contained human souls.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: Do we find like other things? I thought that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny because a lot of practices involve cannibalism, right.
Speaker 1: You hear this a lot. But when you think about
Speaker 1: when I think about cannibalism, I think of Silence of
Speaker 1: the lambs when he talks about eating the thymus with
Speaker 1: the side of fava beans, And I believe fava beans
Speaker 1: was one of the beans that followers did not eat,
Speaker 1: So it's interesting, like is it a nod to that?
Speaker 1: So yeah, weirds.
Speaker 2: Just like Pythagoras, Empedoicles believed in the transmigration of the
Speaker 2: soul or metem psychosis, that souls can be reincarnated between humans, animals,
Speaker 2: and even plants. According to him, all humans, or maybe
Speaker 2: only a selective few among them, were originally long lived
Speaker 2: damons who dwelt in a state of bliss until committing
Speaker 2: an unspecified crime, possibly bloodshed or perjury.
Speaker 1: As a consequence, they fell to Earth, where they would
Speaker 1: be forced to spend thirty thousand cycles of metem psychosis
Speaker 1: through different bodies before being able to return to the
Speaker 1: fear of divinity. So once behavior during his lifetime would
Speaker 1: also determine his next incarnation kind of, I guess, like
Speaker 1: karma rite and this cycle of mortal incarnation seems to
Speaker 1: have been inspired by the god Apaulo's punishment as a
Speaker 1: servant to Adam Remedius.
Speaker 2: And now one to one of my favorite parts. I'm
Speaker 2: sure everybody could tell. We're going to get to the
Speaker 2: eyes now. Empedicoles is credited with the first comprehensive theory
Speaker 2: of light and vision. It is noted that Empedically suggested
Speaker 2: that light takes time to pass from one point to another.
Speaker 2: He put forward the idea that we see objects because
Speaker 2: light streams out of our eyes and touches them. This
Speaker 2: became the fundamental basis on which later Greek philosophers and
Speaker 2: mathematicians like Euclid would construct some of the most important
Speaker 2: theories of light, vision, and optics. Knowledge is explained by
Speaker 2: the principle that elements in the things outside us are
Speaker 2: perceived by the corresponding elements in ourselves. Like is known
Speaker 2: by like. The whole body is full of pores, and
Speaker 2: hence respiration takes place over the whole frame in the
Speaker 2: organs of sense. These pores are especially adapted to receive
Speaker 2: the influences which are continually rising from bodies around us.
Speaker 2: Thus perception occurs. In vision. Certain particles go forth from
Speaker 2: the eye to meet similar particles given forth from the object,
Speaker 2: and the resultant contact constitutes vision. Perception is not merely
Speaker 2: a passive reflection of external objects, and Pedocles caused a
Speaker 2: sensation by explaining how Eyite sight worked. It was one
Speaker 2: of the first ideas Regarding how human vision works, Empedocles
Speaker 2: reasoned that the Greek goddess Aphrodite had lit a fire
Speaker 2: in the eye, and vision was possible because light rays
Speaker 2: from this fire emanated from the eye, illuminating objects around us.
Speaker 2: According to Empedocles, the eyes were like a lantern, guiding
Speaker 2: one through the dark, sounds familiar. Within Each eye blazed
Speaker 2: a specific kind of fire, This mesmerizing fire of the
Speaker 2: goddess Aphrodite. Her magical flames burned brightly without ever causing
Speaker 2: injury or pain, casting forth an inner light that radiated
Speaker 2: outwards from the eye until it encountered something. And whatever
Speaker 2: the light touched you instantly saar with clarity. The inner
Speaker 2: light projected by your ocular lantern reached around you like
Speaker 2: delicate sensory tentacles, exploring the world in profound detail. Sight
Speaker 2: was not merely a passive observation. It was the beautiful
Speaker 2: consequence of your light connecting with whatever you'll looked at.
Speaker 2: And then this is from some stuff that he has
Speaker 2: in Pedoicles focuses on the senses when he talks about
Speaker 2: the way the eye functions, just as when someone before
Speaker 2: taking the road constructs a lamp for himself a flame,
Speaker 2: a flame of gleaming fire in a stormy night, fitting
Speaker 2: as protection against all winds, lantern casings that scatter the
Speaker 2: breath of the buffeting winds, while the light finer as
Speaker 2: it is leaping through to the outside, shines on the
Speaker 2: threshold with its unimpaired beams. Thus, after Aphrodite had fitted
Speaker 2: the Aggian fire enclosed in the membranes with pegs of love,
Speaker 2: she poured round Eye Corry in filmy veils. These kept
Speaker 2: off the depth of water flowing around them, but allowed
Speaker 2: the fire to pass through to the outside. And that
Speaker 2: is a finer and that it is finer where they
Speaker 2: had been bored through the marvelous funnels. And Pedocles's theory
Speaker 2: resonated with many of his fellow Greeks, but not everyone
Speaker 2: was convinced, and it did raise some questions. One thing
Speaker 2: that I was thinking of, like even as I was
Speaker 2: reading this, and even some of the other things that
Speaker 2: you I was just talking about, I have shown it before.
Speaker 2: I've shown it on the show multiple times and then
Speaker 2: all the other podcasts when we're talking about the eye.
Speaker 2: But back in the Ice series, I did show the
Speaker 2: birth of Venus, and I believe the birth of Venus,
Speaker 2: which could be interchangeable with Aphrodite, is an artistic depiction
Speaker 2: of the eyeball, which kind of makes me wonder if
Speaker 2: in Pedocles was doing the same thing with this idea
Speaker 2: which he's trying to describe with her and like her
Speaker 2: dancing could be the hyloid canal bending or a flame flickering,
Speaker 2: you know. I wonder if the flame flickering is even
Speaker 2: a way to show you that the hyloid canal could
Speaker 2: be bending. Another thing I find interesting, Alison Crowley did
Speaker 2: develop an order called the Lamp of the Invisible Light
Speaker 2: inspired Theochian inspired by the Enochian system while he was
Speaker 2: in Mexico. This was after his This was even after
Speaker 2: his initiation into the second order of the harmetic Order
Speaker 2: of the Golden Dawn by Mathers, but before his work
Speaker 2: in either the AA or the OTO, so it is
Speaker 2: in between that time. But I mean, there's there's a
Speaker 2: few things that I do think, in my Opinionley Croley
Speaker 2: know who this guy was, and I think he was
Speaker 2: impressed by his work.
Speaker 1: So Plato, who was born not long after Impedocles died,
Speaker 1: refined his theory to address the concerns raised by others
Speaker 1: regarding impedocles. The reason you could not see in a
Speaker 1: dark room, he explained, was because you needed more than
Speaker 1: the inneral light of your eye lantern. To do so,
Speaker 1: you also had to open the window and let some
Speaker 1: external light in. External light was made by light sources
Speaker 1: such as lamp and the sun, which was different, But
Speaker 1: he's still saying that there's an internal light emanating through
Speaker 1: Right In the time of Tamais, Plato wrote that eyes
Speaker 1: emanated a substance akin to the light of everyday life,
Speaker 1: that flowed in a stream, smooth and dense. By itself,
Speaker 1: this stream of vision was inert, but the catalytic light
Speaker 1: of an external and kindred fire transformed it. It could
Speaker 1: then diffuse the motions of whatever it touched, causing the perception,
Speaker 1: which we call sight. Plato used his optical model to
Speaker 1: explain how you saw your face in the mirror. You
Speaker 1: saw your face because of the interplay between the internal
Speaker 1: light from your eye, some external light, and a third
Speaker 1: kind of light being given off spontaneously by your face.
Speaker 1: Sit happened when your vision stream ran into the light
Speaker 1: being given off by the objects you were looking at.
Speaker 1: Your vision stream smacked into the light coming off of
Speaker 1: your face precisely on the surface of the mirror, and
Speaker 1: on that surface you would then see your face.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Some things, you know, as we're getting ready
Speaker 2: to wrap this up, just you know, one thing I
Speaker 2: did want to kind of add to on nature and
Speaker 2: on purifications, and this really could be a jump, but
Speaker 2: I do wonder if like we could be looking at
Speaker 2: the optic nerve nature or the optic nerve purifications, you know,
Speaker 2: And I can't help to, but also think of the
Speaker 2: oto nerval initiation and the word that you were giving
Speaker 2: during that initiation is also on is my opinion, in
Speaker 2: that situation, it is representing the optic nerve, especially when
Speaker 2: you're standing in front of a tent that looks like
Speaker 2: the optic nerve with the retna vein or artery that
Speaker 2: runs right up it. You see that too, you know.
Speaker 2: And another thing to add, you know, to even add,
Speaker 2: not to say too much, but like you will get
Speaker 2: your thumb pumped twelve times while you're standing over there.
Speaker 2: And the optic nerve is also one of the twelve
Speaker 2: cranial nerves, you know. And when you're looking at the eye,
Speaker 2: you can see where the eye splits from the vitreous
Speaker 2: humor to the ocuous humor and where the lens and
Speaker 2: the riserata are, and when you're looking at that part
Speaker 2: of the eye, as silly as it sounds, can start
Speaker 2: to look like stuff in nature, like an upside down
Speaker 2: flower petal or a seashell where then you can start
Speaker 2: seeing trees in there. So you know, it's just like
Speaker 2: a little thing that I was really wondering about with
Speaker 2: that whole thing, and it's a little out there. It's
Speaker 2: a little bit for you to for you to think
Speaker 2: about with that one. But uh yeah, basically, I mean
Speaker 2: we're pretty much done with talking about demand. There is
Speaker 2: a few fragments here that I would like to re off,
Speaker 2: you know, and then we will wrap it up. So
Speaker 2: here's some of them that I just thought were rather
Speaker 2: interesting to hear. More, Will I tell THEE two there
Speaker 2: is no birth of all things mortal, nor end in
Speaker 2: ruinous death, but mingling only and an interchange of mixed
Speaker 2: there is, and birth is but its name with men.
Speaker 2: I just find that interesting, basically saying that to me,
Speaker 2: there's no birth or no.
Speaker 1: Death, which is interesting because in the Gnostic text of
Speaker 1: Mary Magdalen Jesus talks about not dying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were saying that earlier. Pretty much energy isn't destroyed,
Speaker 2: right though it protects from breath of blowing winds, its
Speaker 2: beam darts outward as more fine and thin, and with
Speaker 2: untiring rays, lights up the sky just so. The fire
Speaker 2: primeval once like hid in the round people of the eye,
Speaker 2: enclosed in films and gauzy veils, which through and through
Speaker 2: were pierced with pores divinely fashioned, and thus kept off
Speaker 2: the watery deeps around, while fire burst outward as more
Speaker 2: fine and thin. I'm assuming. I mean, that does really
Speaker 2: sound a lot like how he's describing how he thinks
Speaker 2: the eyeballs were wanted to throw that. One thing I
Speaker 2: did find interesting is that, like, I don't know if
Speaker 2: these fragments are actually like the way they're numbered in
Speaker 2: the book, but like from what I just read, it
Speaker 2: was from eighty four to eighty eight, and I just
Speaker 2: always find those numbers are very interesting. And let me
Speaker 2: continue reading. The gentle flame of eye did chance to
Speaker 2: get only a little of the earthen part from which
Speaker 2: by Aphrodite, the divine, the untiring eyes were formed. Thus
Speaker 2: Aphrodity wrought with bolts of love. One vision of two
Speaker 2: eyes is born. Oh, I liked all of that. I
Speaker 2: thought that was pretty interesting, and I thought it was
Speaker 2: just all the ways to include some of his fragment
Speaker 2: pieces talking about the eyes in Aphrodite. So that's all
Speaker 2: I got.
Speaker 1: I think I read somewhere. I'm gonna summarize what I
Speaker 1: guess I read the kind of captures exactly. I think
Speaker 1: who Impedicles was or what we're trying to portray empedicalles as.
Speaker 1: His poetry played a significant role in creating the separate
Speaker 1: fields of astronomy, biology, chemistry, cosmology, medicine, philosophy, psychology, and rhetoric.
Speaker 1: He was considered a sorcerer whose words had a magical
Speaker 1: power that did and continues to bewitch the brightest of minds.
Speaker 1: He was a healer who specialized in ecstasy and had
Speaker 1: the ability to access others states of consciousness at will.
Speaker 1: It is said that Empedocles had come to realize his
Speaker 1: immortality by discovering his divinity. He went on to record
Speaker 1: his teachings in the form of poetry, which have been
Speaker 1: considered as a powerful way to direct people towards experiencing
Speaker 1: their own divine nature, freeing people of the illusions that
Speaker 1: buying them, and bring them to an immediate awareness of
Speaker 1: their own immortal soul.
Speaker 2: Well said, Well said Lisa, Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I really think this was a thank you. As you
Speaker 2: could see, there will be no part two, even though
Speaker 2: I said it will be a part in this two
Speaker 2: part series. I honestly thought twenty seven pages of notes
Speaker 2: was going to take two shows. So but you know
Speaker 2: what you make it at fourteen?
Speaker 1: What is that fourteenth fund?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fourteenth fond? Because I can't see it, you know,
Speaker 2: I guess you make it look a little bit longer
Speaker 2: than there really was. That was an awesome episode. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Lisa for doing this with me.
Speaker 1: This was really an amazing you for being patient about it.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, thank you for doing it with me.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it. There was tons and tons of
Speaker 2: work in there. And again, like you said at the end,
Speaker 2: this man we both think he was highly influential, so
Speaker 2: many people in science with sight. You know, this guy
Speaker 2: was from back for five hundred BC. I mean another
Speaker 2: thing I just even want to add, it's just, you know,
Speaker 2: not for nothing, but when you start looking at people
Speaker 2: that had huge impacts in the way we view the
Speaker 2: world today. It seems like an occult. It seems to
Speaker 2: pop up quite otenly. Yeah, oh yeah, that's something to
Speaker 2: think about my opinion for sure. Yeah, but again, thank
Speaker 2: you Lisa so much for finally we got Empedocles done
Speaker 2: and we killed it. And I'm really I really think
Speaker 2: that was not to bragg at the pattist selves on
Speaker 2: the back, but this is going to be probably the
Speaker 2: longest and most comprehensive work done on this man that
Speaker 2: you're gonna find on YouTube and probably podcasts. Yes, for sure,
Speaker 2: we scoured it. I don't think we saw anything over
Speaker 2: thirty eight minutes in the Everything was pretty much the
Speaker 2: same thing. So yes, yes, I'm really hoping that people
Speaker 2: get something out of this and that they will look
Speaker 2: into the man's work, you know, because I think it's
Speaker 2: very important to know who he is. And again, like
Speaker 2: Lisa said at the beginning of the show, how many
Speaker 2: times was this guy always coming up when we're looking
Speaker 2: at other people? He influenced a lot of occultists in
Speaker 2: alchemists and scientists. Absolutely, so all right, that is the
Speaker 2: end of another amazing I'm just gonna say it myselfself.
Speaker 2: Another amazing Occult Reject episode. Yeah, and thank you very much, Lisa,
Speaker 2: and uh yeah, thank you everybody for listening. And until
Speaker 2: the next one, everybody be well later