Peter Kingsley contends that Western culture was deliberately seeded by people like Parmenides, for esoteric purposes. He also says that Parmenides, despite being a poet and mystic, created the foundations of logic - (contrary to the commonly held idea that mystics are usually antipathetic to logic). What do you think of these ideas - particularly as Western culture definitely, at first sight, doesn’t look like it was invented by the enlightened.
I know Peter Kingsley’s work and mention it in The Secret Teachers of the Western World Early Greek philosophy does seem to incorporate much more mystical or esoteric elements than one might think reading standard histories of philosophy, but I’m not sure if it was planned in the way you seem to suggest. A very interesting book on this subject is From Religion to Philosophy by Francis Cornford. If you get a chance it is very much worth checking out; again, I write about it in Secret Teachers All the best, Gary
Hi Gary, thanks for the reply, I think I will have to get some of your books. I just read Freke and Gandy’s Hermetica but it’s a brief introduction. I have Kingsley’s Wisdom of Dark Places - goes into the mystery aspect (or his interpretation) of Parmenides. He also obviously knows about deeper states first hand - opens a few interpretive options for a writer…
I also just chewed my way through three volumes of John Lilly’s work, and I’m pretty sure they are talking about the same wisdom and the same dark place.
Do you consider Parmenides’ Dark Place to be a separate dark place from anyone else’s - or fundamentally the same one everyone has approached in different times and places ?
thanks,
John
…OK there’s maybe not much to reply to that, so I will add an absolute piece of genius from Russel Hoban which I know you, and all your readers, will like.
“Lorna said to me, ‘You know Riddley theres some thing in us it dont have no name.’
I said, ‘What thing is that?’
She said, ‘Its some kind of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals. May be you dont take no noatis of it only some times. Say you get woak up suddn in the middl of the nite. 1 minim youre a sleap and the nex youre on your feet with a spear in your han. Wel it wernt you put that spear in your han it wer that other thing whats looking out thru your eye hoals. It aint you nor it don’t even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan and sheltering how it can.’
I said, ‘If its in every 1 of us theres moren 1 of it theres got to be a manying theres got to be a millying and mor.’
Lorna said, ‘Wel there is a millying and mor.’
I said, ‘Wel if theres such a manying of it whys it lorn then whys it loan?’
She said, ‘Becaws the manying and the millying its all 1 thing it dont have nothing to gether with. You look at lykens on a stoan its all them tiny manyings of it and may be each part of it myt think its sepert only we can see its all 1 thing. Thats how it is with what we are its all 1 girt big thing and divvyt up amongst the many. Its all 1 girt thing bigger nor the worl and lorn and loan and oansome. Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part.'”
..nobody ever put it like that, even Colin Wilson… beautiful.
Gary Lachman 
Hi Gary
Peter Kingsley contends that Western culture was deliberately seeded by people like Parmenides, for esoteric purposes. He also says that Parmenides, despite being a poet and mystic, created the foundations of logic - (contrary to the commonly held idea that mystics are usually antipathetic to logic). What do you think of these ideas - particularly as Western culture definitely, at first sight, doesn’t look like it was invented by the enlightened.
John
I know Peter Kingsley’s work and mention it in The Secret Teachers of the Western World Early Greek philosophy does seem to incorporate much more mystical or esoteric elements than one might think reading standard histories of philosophy, but I’m not sure if it was planned in the way you seem to suggest. A very interesting book on this subject is From Religion to Philosophy by Francis Cornford. If you get a chance it is very much worth checking out; again, I write about it in Secret Teachers All the best, Gary
Hi Gary, thanks for the reply, I think I will have to get some of your books. I just read Freke and Gandy’s Hermetica but it’s a brief introduction. I have Kingsley’s Wisdom of Dark Places - goes into the mystery aspect (or his interpretation) of Parmenides. He also obviously knows about deeper states first hand - opens a few interpretive options for a writer…
I also just chewed my way through three volumes of John Lilly’s work, and I’m pretty sure they are talking about the same wisdom and the same dark place.
Do you consider Parmenides’ Dark Place to be a separate dark place from anyone else’s - or fundamentally the same one everyone has approached in different times and places ?
thanks,
John
…OK there’s maybe not much to reply to that, so I will add an absolute piece of genius from Russel Hoban which I know you, and all your readers, will like.
“Lorna said to me, ‘You know Riddley theres some thing in us it dont have no name.’
I said, ‘What thing is that?’
She said, ‘Its some kind of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its looking out thru our eye hoals. May be you dont take no noatis of it only some times. Say you get woak up suddn in the middl of the nite. 1 minim youre a sleap and the nex youre on your feet with a spear in your han. Wel it wernt you put that spear in your han it wer that other thing whats looking out thru your eye hoals. It aint you nor it don’t even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan and sheltering how it can.’
I said, ‘If its in every 1 of us theres moren 1 of it theres got to be a manying theres got to be a millying and mor.’
Lorna said, ‘Wel there is a millying and mor.’
I said, ‘Wel if theres such a manying of it whys it lorn then whys it loan?’
She said, ‘Becaws the manying and the millying its all 1 thing it dont have nothing to gether with. You look at lykens on a stoan its all them tiny manyings of it and may be each part of it myt think its sepert only we can see its all 1 thing. Thats how it is with what we are its all 1 girt big thing and divvyt up amongst the many. Its all 1 girt thing bigger nor the worl and lorn and loan and oansome. Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part.'”
..nobody ever put it like that, even Colin Wilson… beautiful.