“He’s a musician. He plays at being a poet.”
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Suhrawardi. _The Philosophical Allegories and Mystical Treatises_. Trans. W.M. Thackston. Mazda Publishers. Costa Mesa, CA. 1999. 131 pages.
Insofar as they’re both a) true, in the factual sense, and b) they’re designed to be misleading—often to the extreme that a misinterpretation could result in total disaster—ancient oracles operated a lot like propaganda. Which is to say, in the event that one proves cunning enough to discern the kernel of truth seeded away within that shimmering veneer of misdirection, propaganda can operate a lot like an oracle.
"For [Proclus] made use of the conjunctions and supplications of the Chaldaeans, together with their divine and ineffable revolutions. These he acquired for himself, and from Asclepigeneia, the daughter of Plutarch [of Athens], he learned the invocations and the rest of the apparatus. For she alone preserved the rituals, and the whole process of theurgy, handed on to her from the great Nestorius by her father. But before these the philosopher was purifed in due order by the Chaldaean purifications, and experienced the fiery apparitions of Hecate with his own eyes, as he himself records in one of his own writings... For when he was in his fortieth year, he seemed in a dream to utter the following words:
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦,
𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴
𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦.
And at the beginning of his forty-second year, he seemed to utter the following in a loud voice:
𝘔𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦, 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦,
𝘈𝘯𝘥, 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘭
𝘐𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘴."
~ Marinus, ‘Life of Proclus' [𝘝𝘪𝘵. 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘤.] §28, trans. Edwards (2000), pp.100-102.
@NousHenosis @Peter_Levenda
This was exceptional. I would add that, until the time of Plato, the divine was not persistently projected into the heavens by the Ancient Greeks. Prior to that, as exemplified by Presocratics such as Epimenides, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Empedocles, an encounter with the transcendental entailed a katabatic trip into the depths of Hades—and an ominous encounter with the Supernaturals who manifest there. Mount Olympus existed for them, yes, but that wasn’t envisaged as being within the grasp of man; it was the province of the gods. Hades, conversely, was full of men—or what remains of them psychically—and the myths of heroes who, through cunning, managed to get in and out of the Underworld provided a precedent and a charter for the ritualization of katabasis.
Our senses may be hiding reality from us.
Jeffrey Kripal and Jesse Michels explore the possibility that human perception hides deeper layers of reality because seeing them offered no evolutionary advantage.
“Some forms of knowledge are secret. They’re esoteric by nature. I don’t think it’s a matter of data. I think it’s a matter of cognition.”
“Don Hoffman has this wonderful phrase: fitness beats truth.”
“We have adapted through evolution to win the game. We have not adapted to understand how the game is put together.”
“There is probably a whole chain of consciousness above us that it’s not adaptive for us to perceive.”
“We’re set up to win, not to know.”
If our senses evolved for survival rather than truth, how much of reality remains completely invisible to us?
P.D. Newman retweeted
Author P. D. Newman @PD_Newman at Ingomar Mounds pointing out passion flower with an MAO-I inhibitor. Ingomar was a 13-mound, walled complex established in A.D. 200. His book "Tripping the Trail of Ghosts" was the first book to propose that Native Americans used a hallucinogenic similar to ayahuasca. Pub. by @InnerTraditions in 2025: amazon.com/dp/B0DB5VNTP6/
P.D. Newman retweeted
Author P. D. Newman @PD_Newman at Ingomar Mounds pointing out one of the plants at the site used to create the Native American version of "ayahuasca." Ingomar was a 13-mound, walled complex established in A.D. 200 and all the ingredients necessary for the hallucinogenic are growing at the site. His 2025 book "Tripping the Trail of Ghosts: Psychedelics and the Afterlife Journey in Native American Mound Cultures" was the first book to propose that Native Americans used a similar hallucinogenic as ayahuasca. Newman called this the "Missihuasca Hypothesis." amazon.com/Tripping-Trail-Gh…
North Mississippi, Sept. 29, 2026, 6:27am
The image attached with the clip is a computer enhancement of the transients shown in the video. It appears to depict *two* UAPs, circling one another.
@NousHenosis @jfrickingfaulk @AlchemyAmerican
