Spirit and Soul: * see EndNote <A>

Avicenna (980-1037), an Islamic Persian polymath & scholar,one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers & writers of the Islamic Golden Age; peripatetic philosopher influenced by Aristotelian philosophy.  He wrote 450 works of which 240 survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.  His most famous work on philosophy is The Book of Healing (written 1014-20, published 1027 AD), where he argues for the independence of the soul from the body & the immortality of the soul.  He draws a careful distinction between “soul” and “spirit”

 

Democritus (his physics): * see EndNote<B>

(460-370 BC) carried on the scientific rationalist philosophy associated with Miletus; a materialist he believed everything was the result of natural laws.  Unlike Plato or Aristotle his explanations did not consider purpose, prime mover or final cause.  He looked for mechanistic explanations ("What caused this event?").  He is most famous for his theory of atoms.

and see Chapter IV page 119 and Chapter V page 177

 

Galileo (his physics):

(1564-1642) the father of modern physics & scientific method.  He studied speed & velocity, gravity & free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion.  He worked in applied science, conducted several experiments with pendulums, describing their properties.  His work on the motions of bodies was a precursor of Newton’s classical mechanics.  He asserted that the laws of physics are the same in any system that is moving at a constant speed in a straight line, regardless of speed or direction.  He was one of the first to understand sound frequency.  By scraping a chisel at different speeds, he linked the pitch of the sound produced to the spacing of the chisel's skips, a measure of frequency. In 1638, he described an experimental method to measure the speed of light by arranging that two observers, each having lanterns equipped with shutters, observe each other's lanterns at some distance.

and see Chapter I, page 7

 

Alchemy:

see Chapter VII, page 248

 

Philosopher's Stone:

see Chapter VII, page 248

 

Arabian Culture (spring):

Spengler tells us the Spring of Magian Culture was between 0 AD and 300 AD.  It is during this period that the Culture is most creative

 

The Gospel of St. John:

a text closely related in style & content to the other 3 Johannine New Testament epistles; all dated 85-100 AD.  It has a Gnostic flavour.  The opening theme, references to the pre-existing Logos, along with John's duality of light versus darkness, were originally Gnostic themes.  Gnosticism taught salvation came from gnosis, secret knowledge.  The Gnostics saw Jesus as a revealer of knowledge, not a saviour.  John teaches salvation can only be achieved through revealed wisdom, specifically the belief in Jesus.  His saviour from an alien world above, who says that neither he nor those who accepted him were of this world & who promised to return to take them to a heavenly dwelling, fits the gnostic world picture.

 

the Gnostics (texts):

The Gnostic texts include parts of the New Testament Apocrypha, specifically the Acts of Thomas (early 3rd-century AD) & The Acts of John (early 2nd century AD).  They give accounts of Jesus, his teachings, the nature of God & the lives & teachings of his apostles.  The Apocrypha was preserved but was not included in the Biblical canon.  The Pistis Sophia, a famous Gnostic text, is dated 3rd or 4th century AD.  It relates the teachings of the transfigured Jesus to the assembled disciples, including his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene & Martha.  Another Gnostic text is the Berlin Codex (a codex is a papyrus bound book), unearthed in Akhmim, Egypt, dated early 5th century.  A recent addition are the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi.  These codices comprise 52 Gnostic treatises in Coptic.  The best-known is the Gospel of Thomas; the only complete text of this Gospel, dated 2nd century although based on earlier sources.  Other manuscripts from the collection date from the 3rd & 4th centuries.

 

the Early Fathers (writings of): * see EndNote<C>

aka Apostolic Fathers (1st & 2nd centuries AD) & the Greek Fathers; some may have known the Apostles, or were significantly influenced by them.  The writings of the Apostolic Fathers, though widely circulated, were not included in the canon of the New Testament although written at the same time & place as the canonical texts.  The first 3 Apostolic Fathers are considered the chief ones: Clement of Rome (died 99 AD), Ignatius of Antioch (35-110 AD) and Polycarp of Smyrna (AD 69-155 AD).  Their works as a whole are notable for their literary simplicity, religious zeal & lack of Hellenistic philosophy or rhetoric, containing thoughts on the organisation & structure of the church.  The most famous of the Greek Fathers were: Justin Martyr (100-165 AD), Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202 AD) & Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD).  One of the most famous early Christian writers was a student of Clement of Alexandria, by the name of Origen (185-254 AD).

and see Chapter VI page 214

 

Neo-Platonists (texts):

Neo-Platonism emerged against the background of Hellenistic philosophy & religion.  Its founder was Ammonius Saccas (3rd century AD), a Greek philosopher from Alexandria.  He taught Plotinus (204-270 AD).  In the Enneads (270 AD) of Plotinus, we find the primary text of Neo-Platonism.  It was edited & compiled by his student Porphyry (234-305 AD).  This work posits 3 principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul.  Following Plotinus there are 3 periods of Neo-Platonism.  First we have Porphyry, then comes Iamblichus (245-325 AD), a Syrian Neo-Platonist philosopher of Arab origin.  He established a school in Syria & set the future direction for Neo-Platonist philosophy.  Finally we have the 5th & 6th centuries, when the Academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished.

 

Manicheans:

major religion founded by Mani (216–274 AD), an Iranian prophet in the Sasanian Empire.  The Shabuhragan (meaning “the book of Shapur") was a book by Mani written in Middle Persian, dedicated to Shapur I (215-272 AD), the king of the Sassanid Persian Empire.  It outlines Mani's new religion which unites elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity & Buddhism.  Mani taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an on-going process that takes place in history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter & returned to the world of light, whence it came.  These beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian religious movements & Gnosticism.  It was highly successful & thrived between the 3rd & 7th centuries, spreading far through the Aramaic-speaking regions.  Manichaean churches & scriptures existed as far east as China & as far west as the Roman Empire.  It was one of the most widespread religions in the world & was briefly the main rival to Christianity to replace classical paganism.

 

Talmud:

central text of Rabbinic Judaism, primary source of Jewish religious law & theology.  Until modernity the centre piece of Jewish cultural life, foundational of thought & aspirations, guide for daily life.  It has 2 components; the Mishnah (dated around 200 AD), a written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism's Oral Torah; and the Gemara (date around 500 AD), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible.

 

the Avesta:

sacred book of Zoroastrianism containing its cosmogony, law & liturgy, the teachings of the prophet Zarathustra. The extant Avesta is all that remains of a much larger body of scripture, apparently Zoroaster’s transformation of a very ancient tradition.  The voluminous manuscripts of the original were destroyed when Alexander the Great conquered Persia.  The present Avesta was assembled from remnants and standardized under the Sāsānian kings (3rd–7th century AD).

 

Imperium Romanum (religiosity): * see EndNote<D>

Religion in the Roman Empire encompassed the domestic practices & beliefs the Romans regarded as their own, as well as the many cults imported to Rome or practised by peoples throughout the provinces.  The Empire was built on conquest & commerce; traders, legions & travellers brought back to Rome cults originating in the East, from Egypt, Greece, Iberia, India & Persia. The cults of Cybele, Isis, Mithras, and Sol Invictus were particularly important.  Christianity was only 1 of many religious movements.  Some of those were initiatory religions of intense personal significance, similar to Christianity.  We also see the formation and evolution of Rabbinic Judaism.  The period between 27 BC & 284 AD is a period of dynamic experimentation & spirituality with many syncretic sects.  These included Gnosticism & Neo-Platonism & hermeticism.  The latter emerged in the 2nd century AD, based on The Hermetica, Egyptian-Greek wisdom texts from the 2nd century or earlier.  They discuss the divine, the cosmos, mind & nature, as well as alchemy, astrology & related concepts.

 

Posidonius:

(135-51 BC) Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian & teacher, native to Apamea, Syria (Hellenistic city on the river Orontes N. Syria); acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his age; only fragments of his vast writings survived.  He completed his education in Athens, a student of Panaetius.  He soon he came in conflict with the Stoic doctrines & eventually developed a synthetic Stoicism, incorporating Plato & Aristotle.  He remained a faithful follower of Aristotelian doctrines.  He settled around 95 BC in Rhodes, a maritime state which had a reputation for scientific research.  He came near to mastering all the knowledge of his time & attempted to create a unified system for understanding the human intellect & the universe which would provide an explanation of & guide for behaviour.  He accepted Plato's view of the soul, that passions were inherent in human nature.  In addition to the rational faculties, he taught that the human soul had faculties that were spirited (anger, desires for power, possessions) & desiderative (desires for sex & food).  Ethics was the problem of how to deal with these passions and restore reason as the dominant faculty.

 

Substance (soul structure): * see EndNote<E>

Spengler is contrasting the Aristotelian view of the Soul with the Neo-Platonist view of the Soul; Apollonian versus Magian.

 

world-cavern:

This is the prime image of the Magian Culture and will inform all the symbols within the Magian Macrocosm.

 

Consensus:

general agreement or concord; harmony; majority of opinion

 

portraits (of Constantinian age): * see EndNote<F>

Constantine, emperor 307-37 AD; the Colossus of Constantine is famous for its size & fixed stare. A huge acrolithic statue of Constantine the Great (280–337 AD) it occupied the west apse, Basilica of Maxentius (in the Forum Romanum, Rome).  It is a seated, enthroned figure 40 feet high. The head alone is 8 feet high.  The work is dated between 312 and 325 AD.

 

πνεύμα:

Ancient Greek, spirit, the soul; the immaterial element of human being in contrast to the body

 

Plotinus:

see Chapter II, pages 56, 72 and 81; Chapter VII page 248

 

Origen:

see Chapter VI, page 214

 

Paul (I Corinthians, XV, 44):

This epistle of the New Testament contains the earliest account of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.  The chapter closes with an account of the nature of the resurrection, that in the Last Judgement the dead will be raised and both the living and the dead transformed into "spiritual bodies"

“it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.”

 

σώμα ψυχικόν:

Ancient Greek, a natural body (from I Corinthians, XV, 44)

 

σώμα  πνεματικόν:

Ancient Greek, a spiritual body (from I Corinthians, XV, 44)

 

psychics:

in the Gnostic faith refers to the "soulful", souls partially initiated; spirits who dwell in matter.

 

pneumatics:

in the Gnostic faith a "spiritual" soul, fully initiated, immaterial, souls escaping the doom of the material world via gnosis.

 

Plutarch:

(46-120 AD) Greek biographer & essayist; although a Greek by birth (born in Chaeronea, east of Delphi, in Boeotia) he became a Roman citizen (although he continued to live in Greece).  He wrote in Greek but for both Greek & Roman readers.  His biographies are enriched with frequent ethical reflections & anecdotes.  He is a moralist whose aim is to edify the reader.  His most famous work was Parallel Lives (circa 110 AD), a series of biographies of famous Greeks & Romans, in pairs, to illuminate their common moral virtues & vices.  In his work “Moralia” or Morals, a series of dialogues which were written down & collected, he speaks of voύς or “intellect” and ψυχή or “soul”.  Here he agrees with Plato: the soul is more divine than the body while intellect is more divine than the soul.  The mix of soul & body produces pleasure & pain; the conjunction of mind & soul produces reason which is the source of virtue and vice

and see Chapter I, page 14

 

voύς:

Ancient Greek, noun, mind, philosophical term for intellect, perception, sense; mind as used in feeling, the heart, soul; the mind as used in resolving and purposing, will

 

ψυχή:

Ancient Greek, noun, soul (the immortal part of a person); ghost (the spirit of a dead person)

 

Persians:

During the Principate (27 BC- 284 AD) the Persians established the Parthian Empire, which thrived from 247 BC until 224 AD.  The Parthians were a major Iranian political & cultural power & their armies on occasion defeated Rome.  They were culturally & politically heterogeneous with a variety of religious systems & beliefs, the most widespread being those dedicated to Greek & Iranian cults.  Most Parthians were polytheistic.  Greek and Iranian deities were often blended (e.g., Zeus was equated with Ahura Mazda).  The extent of Parthian patronage of Zoroastrianism is not known.  Evidence suggests that the Parthian king Vologases I encouraged the presence of Zoroastrian magi priests at court & sponsored the compilation of sacred Zoroastrian texts which became the Avesta.  The Sasanian Empire (224-651 AD), which succeeded the Parthians were likewise recognised as a leading world power.  The Sassanids would adopt Zoroastrianism as the official state religion of the empire.

 

school of Baghdad:

see Chapter VII, page 248

 

school of Basra:

see Chapter VII, page 248

 

Alfarabi:

see page 178, 306

 

Alkindi:

(801–873 AD) Arab Muslim, father of Arab philosophy & first Islamic peripatetic thinker; born in Kufa, educated in Baghdad, a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom.  Abbasid Caliphs appointed him to oversee the translation of Greek scientific & philosophical texts into Arabic.  Contact with Hellenistic philosophy had a profound effect on him; he synthesised, adapted & promoted Hellenistic and Peripatetic philosophy in the Muslim world.  Later he wrote hundreds of original treatises of his own from metaphysics, psychology, to medicine, pharmacology & mathematics.  On the soul, he taught that it is a simple, immaterial substance, related to the material world only because of its faculties which operate through the physical body.  It is like a ship which has temporarily anchored at an island & allowed passengers to disembark; those passengers who linger on the island may be left behind when the ship sail.  His analogy reflects a Stoic concept: we must not become attached to material things (the island), as they will be taken away when the ship sets sail again.  He connects this with a Neo-Platonist idea, saying our soul can be directed towards the pursuit of desire or the pursuit of intellect.  Desire will tie the soul to the body; when the body dies, the soul will also die.  Intellect will free the Soul from the body and allow it to survive in a realm of pure intelligence.