HEART OF SUMMER

Jose Iñigo Homer Lacambra Ayala III

Bukidnon

Early one summer evening with no birds flying in a red sunset sky; he saw her crossing the
street. From the bridge, he saw her crossing below on cobbled stones. Stepping lightly. Sharp
heels clicking. Gently swaying to warm winds.
Hey, he said. You there below.
She stopped. Looked around, ready to fly.
She titled her face to the wind. Her flowing hair swished about her shoulders. Pursued on her
red lips he could see the world outlined: f-r-e-s-h. Then the angry tossing of her head in a few
minutes she disappeared.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and slowly began to knock the ashes into the purpling
river below. There was a Sunday-emptiness in the streets. He passed by the stores feeling the
eager gnawing, sharp lights on his eyes. Pale mannequins in silk negligees beckoned and
called. Bright silver voices tinkled behind inch-thick glass.
You there, he whispered. Beautiful, beautiful.
A night watchman stared at him through iron grills and tapped his nightstick to the
pavement.
He moved on. Turned his head to look back at the glass panes that shrouded warm, flesh-pink
hands. At the corner of an intersection he was sucked within the hot trembling of the city
night air, listening to the faint calls of children playing hide-and-seek.
Under the pretext of pushing back the hours, caught in great whorls of colored life, he went
to a movie house.
He stood before the ticket window fumbling for loose change. He cleared his throat. One
down, please.
The cold air inside the dark arena made his throat dry. Cigarette smoke hung like veils in the
air. He stood behind, letting the firefly screen glimmer slowly into focus.
An usher signaled him with a flashlight to an empty leather-cushioned chair.
Dear to the voices that crowded around him, elbowing and pushing, he found himself pressed
to rose granite walls beside her, she of the white hands and the cup shell face with elfin
eyes.
Excuse me he said in a whisper.
Her light brown eyes framed curved wings of lashes shut him out of her glance as she edged
hurriedly away.
He felt like the hunter stalking old men. The hunter whose veins pulsed and throbbed as he
stamped clawed hands on the roof. Softly hissing, his breath sang between his teeth as he
drew near her once more.
Please, he said. So many years have gone and always silence between us.
She turned her back of green silk flowers to him, not saying anything.
His stomach rolled with spasms. He crossed the aisle of seats. He lumbered about trying to
get lost in a crowd of sharp eyes. Maneuvering himself between a block-frocked grandmother
and her little monster with silver pistols, he managed at last to preach the cushioned door
and the dark night beyond chandeliered lights. Moaning inside with unbearable cries he
grouped his way blindly through the narrow streets of the city. He stumbled with stone steps
past the rumbling wheels of cars, the beckoning ladies behind barred glass the arching
bridge over purple waters, the lavender lights of drink-dine-dance to the sagging door of his
room.
He flaked off his clothes. Lacquered with sweat he stood in the middle of the scratched floor,
fear and desire still fused into one big heavy rock in his chest. Etched behind his closed
eyelids, he still saw her, the inaccessible vision. The smell of roses, the fire, the pain of being
alone.
He threw himself on the bed, sobbed, was possessed by black clouds. He was unable to quiet
the hurried place of tomorrow's endless search for another she and another her in twenty and
fifty ways, he saw himself crawling in the city mud looking for the lost image. As always the
prey eluded him. The warm voice of summer kept whispering in his ear. The hateful clock
kept ticking. The very room seemed bathed in a yellow mist of sweat as he turned this way
and that way. Tireless nerves drawn taut twitched. One half of his face sagged as the other
half leered.
Dreaming he saw the yellow brown house where she lived. Lace curtains were ruffled by a
sudden cool breeze. Her green diary of poems. The amber drink with cold sweat around its
glassy throat. The upright piano with chandeliered lights. Picture frames of smiling her and
pensive she. The diploma with medals. A wooden blacked sofa. Magazines on the rack. Waxen
lilies on the vase. Her mother with hair done up in a bun and a face of smiles.
She'll be out in a minute. Where did you two meet?
In the garden. On the street. In a house. Which lie would he choose? So he said, by the sea
wall. During a storm. With summer lightning. Tangerine flowers. Green glove lights.
Must have been fun. The mother answered.
I did not even get a chance to touch her fingers, he thought. He shook his head, replied, yes
we had a lot of fun. Watching the wind frown out the sea. Picking whispering sea shells.
Throwing bubbles of colored sound between us.
I'm glad the mother said. I hope you continue to take her out. It does her a world of good to
be with you.
What did you say ma'am?
Writing letters to that horrid man. Can you imagine that? A man who confesses his most
secret sins to an innocent girl like mine? Yet he professes to love her.
Letters. Horrid man. Secret sins. What was this all about?
Yes, her mother continued. Her kind voice tore and twisted his dreams to shreds. He even has
the nerve to come here and face me. Telling me in the face that I have no right to read my
daughter's letters.
Hello, she said, coming into the wounded room. What has my mother been staging about?
The mother left the room.
The cool wind ruffles the face curtains. The framed picture and the gold medals swing back
into the place. The flying magazine settles down on the rock. The feather fans the air. She
sits down. Pink toes wink as she crosses her legs. Her voice, like remembered laughter.
Inexplicably, he was wondering alone. Climbing long, narrow flights of stair lined with street
lamps. Opening and closing unending doors. Beating his fists against lad walls, rose window,
and seashell floors.
Then he was with her again in the small yellow brown house. They were eating suffer. Was
covered with torn design. From there proclaim beds, raw fish lets were scooped out with
spoon lights steeped in garlic vinegar. The meal is hurried pantomime of swallowing and
drinking. Their mouths open but tongues refuse to move. Summer lighten thunder and splits
the room.
After supper, you have to know, his mind whispering. You have to know, he edge his hand to
here. Briefly the tip of his forefinger kisses her numb. Her moonlight arms move an inch away.
Like crumpled paper his heart rustle, pale, and his monetary strays.
His eyes enter each room corner; linger in her rosebud lips and her cup shell face. Don't be
afraid, his mind claims.
And so the three words tumbled in his lips, multiplied, reechoed by his veins.
I love you.
Smiling with clay-shuttered eyes, she answered, do you know? Have you forgotten? You are
my friend My knight in shining armor. Come let us play hide-and-seek.
The evening angel dropping wings begs for the drying lamp. The fire is out-will not relight.
Not for many more summers yet, she declares.
With chisel eyes, she carves him out of the heart and throws him into the summer rain. Past
nine in the evening he walks past midnight and still he walks his feet crumpling leaves with
sad little sounds. The black night whirls him drunk to his room and bangs the door shut.
He was curled up at the foot of the bed, his head dipped in a pool of sunlight. There was the
papery feel of starched linen against his cheek. Low, drawn out groans trickled out of his
mouth. Another nimble summer morning had swept the sun across the sky calling him for the
great delicious yellow hunt. There were stained glass flowers to be picked before they melted
with the heat. There were speckled words seeds to be sown and reaped. Morning fire gardens
and wine blue reeds to catch.
He swept the door behind him and crept down the street humming a gay madrigal.
I shall try the beach today, he announced to himself.
He thought of glistening sweat drops on opened pores. He smiled. Ringing the air with a fat
whistle he hailed a taxi.
To the sea, to sea, he shouted. A sunrise drives to the yellow beach alley. After an hour's ride,
he reached the wrinkled water gleaming beneath the summer sky. The sound of waves
quivered in the air. He stood on a sand gulf his eyes widening into stares.
Nothing had changed. The coiling, froth of water tendrils. The yellow tumid sand purpling the
wind. Meshes of legs and arms and heads hanging in the air to dry. He walked about his mind
lost in the season of white sunlight and vague figured clouds. Slowly the rhythm of the hunt
flowed through his veins without a break, gathering cadence as his body hurried onward to
the chase.
Where are you, he whispered.
He heard the sound of stifled laughter from afar.
Near the lifeguard tower he saw her. She of the gossamer flash and the silver eyes.
Hey, he shouted.
He ran toward cup-shell face and the elfin eyes.
Wait!
His feet fell unyielding to yellow sand as he stumbled on a stone.
Wait! He shouted again. He pounded the erring stone with his fist.
Slavering froth blossomed on his mouth as he gasped and rolled over the yellow beach, trying
to stand up.
Then, he heard pebble words cutting through the air farming a wall.
He is mad. Don't touch him. Be careful.
Purple splotched in the face, he pawed and scooped the yielding earth like a martyred
beetle.
The lifeguard finally came. The man propped him against arvined seawall draped with limp
seaweeds.
He flung the outstretched hand. Go! Leave me! The air pointed heat, flared before his eyes
like glowing flower swords. Where is she? She asked.
His flesh cried out, renew the hunt. Look for the glass stained flower.
Below the turquoise sky the sea beckoned with fretted fingers. He saw her suddenly wading
in the pool of blues and greens.
This time you shan't escape me, chuckled his brain. The glow of pleasure wove its silken
mesh about his shaken limbs and drew him on.
Slowly he picked his way through the maze of heads until he reached the edge of lopping
waters. He moved toward the light. His shoes of watered sand slowly ebbed with the morning
tide.
He was near, quite near, when she heard the beating sound of waves against his outstretched
hands.
She winked her pearl-creamed nose. Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?
I have lost my way, he said, smiling with tenderness.
Pah, she said and scooped water into his face.
Don't you remember? Are you not. . .
No, I'm not, she said. Beside you're much too old to be wading about. She moved on to deeper
water.
Please don't, he said. You know I can't swim.
You have nothing to fear. Often I have followed you in the night. Did you know that?
Look, she said. I'm married woman with kids. So why bother me huh?
The other night I saw you at the movie house with him. He wagged his finger? Behind glass,
beneath floors in the sky, whispering always whispering.
You're crazy! Get away from me! I'll call for help.
Aah, my pretty little faun, it will not be easy as that. You shan't get away this time.
He held out his arm and lurched her. He crashed against a wad of seawater. She was gliding a
meter away phosphorescent white.
Wait, he said. There's really no place for you to go. See. . . he pointed to the distant shore.
They are too far away to hear you shout.
You are old and you are ugly. You should be out away. You filthy maniae! She began to cry.
There are no ugly things in this world, he shouted in anger. All things are bright and beautiful.
I know because it is the truth like you her so bright and beautiful. I won't hurt you. Just let
me hold your hands, the way you used to once a long time ago. Crossing streets on the
beach, the summer rain, sand burials in the movies. . . Look at your shadow in the sky he
painted to the sun.
She turned her pale, trembling gaze upwards.
He reached out and grasped her by the foot.
Come here, he gasped. Let me tell you the long nights and the empty streets without lover.
With the other foot she managed to kick him in the chest. Breaking free of his claw-like hold
she arched her silver body through the sea flashing away on the water wings.
No! Come back here!
He heaved his body through the waves, flapped his arms, sprinkled ivory spume into rain.
Comeback… the words were cut from his throat as the bottom fell from beneath his feet. He
sank beneath the waves. A wild kicking brought him up the sunlit air. Gurgling and spitting
bitter salted water, he called out and sank beneath once more.
He closed his eyes. The water began to sting his eyes like bees. A last strong beat in his
veins sent his limbs into frenzied motion. Like a picture book whale he swished up for the
last time. The ever faithful eye swept the pale blue sky for the heart of summer.

Ancient Greek Mysticism

by Hannah M.G. Shapero

The Greeks gave us the very word for mysticism. The Greek word MUO means, “to shut the eyes or mouth.”
MUO is closely related to the verb MUEO, “to initiate into the mysteries.” The closed eyes and mouth in this
context do not signify blindness or muteness, but secrecy and silence, and the order not to reveal the secrets
of the initiation and revelation that one had received. These Greek root-words have given us “mystic” and
“mysticism,” “mystery” and “mysterious,” as well as “mute.” Every time we talk about mysticism we speak a bit
of Greek.

But what exactly is Mysticism? The word is often downgraded to mean superstition, priestcraft, occultism or
magic, or other things regarded as irrational, all of which are somewhat related to mysticism and the mystical
life. But the basic meaning of “mysticism” has to do with the relationship of human beings to a divinity or deity,
or, for non-theists, “ultimate reality.” Mysticism is about direct contact between human beings and this divine
reality. This contact, when mystics try to speak about it, is said to be ineffable and indescribable—yet for
thousands of years, those mystics have given us many exact and definite testimonies of their experiences.

Mysticism is “introverted.” It is an “inner” experience, taking place within the consciousness of an individual
human being. The characteristic expression of this individual “inwardness” is Plotinus’ famous phrase, “the
flight of the Alone to the Alone.” Yet there is also an “extroverted” mysticism, which is found in ritual and
communal contexts, in liturgy, initiation into a group, and sometimes in visions seen by many people at once.
And though mysticism is thought to be “irrational,” there is also a form of it, which I would call “rationalist
mysticism,” which builds systems of ideas and symbols onto the base of an intuitive, mystical revelation.

Both kinds of mysticism occur in the ancient Greek world, though the “extroverted” kind is more easily
traceable. And in most cases, the “introverted” and the “extroverted” were both present in a mystical practice,
rite, or event. The practice of ritual or liturgy would, it was hoped, lead to an individual experience of insight or
a meeting with an otherworldly and divine being.

The roots of Greek mysticism are very old, as old as the earliest Greek expansion through the Eastern
Mediterranean in the 7th century BCE. A major scholarly chronicler of this encounter was E.R.Dodds, who in
the early 1950s wrote a book, which is now, a classic, called THE GREEKS AND THE IRRATIONAL. This
book counters the then-common myth (which is still promoted by some scholars and philosophers) that Greek
culture was one of pure rationalism and non-mythological, proto-scientific thought. Certainly those things were
important in Greek culture, but they are not the whole story. In his book, Dodds shows how non-rational
elements were integrated into the spiritual and philosophical life of ancient Greece.

The most revolutionary contribution to Greek cultural studies in this book is Dodds’ assertion that there is a
shamanic influence in Greek mysticism and mystical practices. Even though Dodds’ book was written before
Mircea Eliade’s definitive study on shamanism, anthropologists had already described shamanism,especially
as it occurred in central Asia and Eastern Europe. It was this form of shamanism, which the Greek colonists
met with when they colonized the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea, as well as in Anatolia in what
is now Turkey. As Dodds and other authors describe it, the model of shamanism becomes the basic foundation
for much of what becomes Greek mysticism.

Shamanism, as Mircea Eliade describes it, is an “archaic technique of ecstasy.” The shaman, who is usually a
specialist in this task, is able to enter into “another world,” a non-physical world which is nevertheless
considered to be “real.” The shaman may enter into the other world using mind-altering drugs, or by non-drug
practices such as drumming, dancing, and ritual performances. Shamans are often initiated into their calling by
a symbolic death, often through dismemberment. The shaman is then “resurrected” and put back together, so
that he or she may become a spiritual benefactor for the people he/she serves. Shamans enter into the other
world either to explore for themselves or on behalf of people. Often they go into the inner world—or
“underworld,” in order to retrieve the souls of those who are in danger of death. Shamans are thought to have
magical powers of clairvoyance, healing, communication with animals or with dead peoples’ souls, and
blessing and cursing, among many other abilities. And their words, or songs and poetry, are thought to have
magical powers as well.

A basic assumption of shamanism is that the soul is independent of the body, and can “travel” outside the
body: it is detachable. The shaman’s soul goes on a visionary journey, while the body is suspended in a
trance. The soul enters what modern shamanic scholar and practitioner Michael Harner calls the “shamanic
state of consciousness,” in which a mythical reality, rather than our material reality, can be experienced. A
milder, less trance-like form of this practice is sometimes called “active imagination,” the directed use of the
imagination in mental visualization, rather than in undirected daydreams and fantasies.

The ancient Greek encounter with shamanism and its transformation into Greek mysticism is described by
W.K.C. Guthrie in his ORPHEUS AND GREEK RELIGION, where he shows how shamanic motifs of the
detachable soul, soul-travel, ecstasy, dismemberment, and resurrection were taken over by the cult of
Dionysus, and then modified and refined by the mysterious religious movement known as “Orphism,” named
after its mythical founder, the poet Orpheus. The myth of Orpheus has a shamanic quality to it: Orpheus
charms wild beasts with his songs, he voyages to the Underworld in search of his lost wife, he fails to bring her
back (in some variants of the myth, he succeeds), and is later dismembered either by Furies or by angry
female followers (depending on the variant of the myth). The religion, centered around this shamanic poet
figure of Orpheus, though it is not well-documented by contemporary evidence, was highly influential in the
development of later Greek mysticism in myth, theory, and practice.

Orphism was an initiatory religion, rather like the folk religions of ancient Greece such as the famous
Eleusinian Mysteries. Orphic worshippers revered gods and goddesses such as Dionysus, Demeter, and
Persephone, divinities of agriculture and natural cycles. Most of the Orphic teachings are revealed only by
much later writers, who despite writing many centuries after Orphism flourished, seem to have preserved its
basic doctrines fairly well. For Orphics, the human soul is immortal. It is part of a divine unity, or is divine in
itself. But it is imprisoned in a mortal, material body. The goal of the Orphic devotee is to escape from the
unspiritual body through initiation, accepting the saving knowledge and practices, and performing, or
witnessing, the sacred ritual. Through these actions one could escape from the sorrowful toils of the material
world, and in doing so achieve union with the Divine. Orphism, unlike the collective, civic religion of
mainstream Greek paganism, was an individualistic religion, in which salvation came through individual
intuition and enlightenment, not through an impersonal “contract” between gods and men.
The Orphics believed in reincarnation—the soul was imprisoned in a body from one incarnation to the next, in
a great turning wheel of lives. The goal of the Orphic was to end the cycle of births by earning one’s way out.
This concept of reincarnation and merit is tantalizingly close to that of Hinduism and Buddhism—though
scholars have never been able to prove definitely that there was any influence between the Eastern religions
and the Greek. Reincarnation is popularly thought to be an “Eastern” belief but in reality it has been a feature
of Western esoteric thought from the earliest moments of Western culture.

The Orphic mystical movement, in its concern for the wandering soul and the inner world, echoing shamanic
myths in its teachings, could be considered a Greek transformation of the more primal shamanism of Central
Asia. And this is the background for the first great Greek mystical philosophers: Pythagoras, Heracleitos,
Parmenides, and Empedocles. These thinkers are among the group categorized under the name of
“Presocratic philosophers.”

One of the earliest, the greatest, and the most influential of these was Pythagoras, who lived from about 570
BCE to 500 BCE. He was originally from the Eastern Mediterranean island of Samos, near what is now the
Turkish coast, and he was educated in the sophisticated Greek colonial civilization that had already been there
for more than a hundred years. These Eastern Greek colonies also absorbed many cultural influences from
the Middle East, whether from Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Persia, and it is because of this influence on
Pythagoras’ philosophy that legends about him say that he studied in Egypt or Babylon. It is unlikely that he
actually did so, but the Eastern connection is there in Pythagoras’ teaching, gained in an indirect way. In his
adult life, he lived in the Greek colonies of Sicily and South Italy.

Pythagoras is famous as a mathematician and geometer, the inventor (or at least the one who introduced it to
the West) of the “Pythagorean theorem” about right-angle triangles. He is also renowned for his mathematical
theory of musical notes. He was the first Western philosopher to teach that mathematics, or number, is the key
to the universe—which is still the foundation of science as we know it. And yet Pythagoras was also a religious
figure and a mystic; the “philosopher” in his era was not a specialist, and could write and practice both material
science and mystical religion.

The mystical aspects of Pythagoras’ teachings, which inspired the monastic communities he founded, are
closely related to Orphic doctrines and practices. Orphism was prevalent among the thinkers of the Greek
Italian colonies where Pythagoras lived and taught. Pythagorean mysticism sounds a lot like Orphism:
immortality of the soul which is separate from the body, reincarnation (Pythagoras, like many modern mystics,
is said to have known who his previous lives were), vegetarianism (because human souls may be reincarnated
into animals), asceticism, meditation, and ritual practices designed to facilitate the experience of revelation
and union with the Divine. Disciples were initiated into Pythagoras’ sect, and Philosophy was seen as the
saving Knowledge, which set the soul on its upward path away from the material world and the imprisoning
cycle of incarnations. Interestingly, both men and women were accepted as Pythagorean initiates, in a society
where women were usually strictly excluded from intellectual and philosophical life.

Pythagoras himself achieved the status of a semi-divine founder, whether he wished himself to be or not. He
inherited from shamanic traditions (and their Orphic transformations) the role of the “theios aner” or “holy man”
whose journeys into the Inner world, and his magical incantations, put him in touch with the Divine and gave
him magical powers to benefit the world.

Philosophers, then and now, want to know about Being. They want a “Theory of Everything” which can explain
whether there is any unity behind the visible diversity of the world. Is there an Ultimate Substance from which
everything proceeds? Nowadays, most of this speculation is taken up by physical science, but in the
Presocratic era, a philosopher was also a scientist, and vice versa, so philosophers always had something to
say about Being and the origin of the material world.

Before Pythagoras, Eastern Greek philosophers such as Thales of Miletus had speculated that the Ultimate
Substance was water; Anaximenes, another Ionian philosopher, suggested Air. For Heracleitos, who lived in
Ephesus on the Ionian coast from about 540–475 BCE, under Persian rule, the ultimate substance was Fire.
Heracleitos is famous for his theory of “all things in flux,” a vision of the world in which all things are temporary
and there is ultimately no absolute but Change. All things are made out of primal Fire, and all things will
eventually return to that primal Fire. In a way, Heracleitos’ ideas are closest to the modern view of Quantum
Mechanics, in which the “material world” is really composed of whirling clouds of particles, which only appear
to be solid from our perspective. Heracleitos also remarked on the pervasiveness of pairs of opposites in our
world: night and day, light and darkness, birth and death, good and evil—all of them subject to constant
change. And yet there was also an ultimate Wisdom which controlled all these things, an impersonal cosmic
intelligence, or “justice,” (in the sense of cosmic order rather than legal or moral justice), which he called the
Logos. This concept of cosmic Logos—the word means literally “word” but also “law,” “reason,” or “order”—
would have a vast influence in the philosophy of the next two thousand years.

It is intriguing that Heracleitos dealt with the ideas of primal Fire, dualistic pairs of opposites, and cosmic order
during a time when his homeland was under Persian rule. There are echoes of Zoroastrian philosophy in all
these ideas, though not exact mirroring. Zoroastrian philosophy, as evident in the prophet Zarathushtra’s own
hymns, the Gathas, as well as later Zoroastrian thought, honor Fire as the primal symbol of God, and
associate Fire with a spirit of divine Justice and Order called, in ancient Persian, “Asha.” Zarathushtra also
meditates on the dualistic opposites found both in the world (Gathas, Yasna 44.4) and in the moral sphere
(Yasna 30.3–4). Zoroastrianism is one of the “oriental” influences, which can be seen, if sometimes only in
faint traces, in all of the philosophers of Greek mysticism.

But is Heracleitos really mystical? The idea of an impersonal Logos as the ultimate source of knowledge points
to something more than just empirical studies of the world. A fragment of Heracleitos’ own writing sounds quite
mystical, at least to our modern sensibilities: “There is one logos, one reason for everything, throughout the
one cosmos, which is the same for all…” (Heracleitos, fragment 20). Heracleitos’ teachings became very
important for later mysticism, especially that of the Stoics, a much later philosophical school, who built many of
their ideas on the concept of the universal Logos and the primal Fire.

The Presocratic philosophers, in their non-mythological approach to knowing about the material world, are
celebrated as “proto-scientists” or early rationalists. And it is true that much of their speculation about the
origins and working of the material world forms a kind of pre-technological “science.” But at the same time, this
proto-scientific thought inspired much mystical thought and experience as well. For many of these
philosophers, the material world was “alive,” endowed with not only Logos-wisdom but also a kind of inner life
and sentience of its own. The mystical transformation of material speculation, or mysticism inspired by
science, is a philosophical process, which was as active in the fifth century BCE as it is today, 2500 years
later. The philosophical “Theory of Everything” of one era becomes the esoteric philosophy of another. In our
era, as modern science explains more and more about the material world and its origins, the ancient
philosophical theories survive nevertheless. They become what I described at the beginning of this essay as
“rationalist mysticism,” a kind of mysticism which builds logically on “data” which are the result not of scientific
experiments but of deduction, intuition, or revelation.

Another Presocratic philosopher whose work approaches mysticism is Parmenides (c.515 BCE–450 BCE),
who flourished in southern Italy. Parmenides, up until recently, has been thought of as mainly a logician who
proved, with his logic, that all Being is essentially one absolute, immovable, undifferentiated Unity—a
conclusion that our own “ordinary” perception of reality contradicts. Recently the iconoclastic British scholar
Peter Kingsley, in his book IN THE DARK PLACES OF WISDOM, has attempted to prove, using evidence
from Parmenides’ own writing and also from inscriptions about Parmenides’ background as a member of a
“school” of sacred healing, that Parmenides’ vision of Unity comes not just from the intellectual exertions of
logic, but from actual experience gained in—surprisingly—what amounts to a “shamanic state of
consciousness.” If this is true, then Parmenides belongs in the realm of Pythagorean “holy men” as well as in
the ranks of early practitioners of rationalizing logic.

The last of the great Presocratic philosophers was also one of the strangest: Empedocles of Acragas (his
home in western Sicily), who lived from about 490 BCE–430 BCE. Empedocles was known even in his own
lifetime as a “holy man” and wonderworker who was able to control the forces of nature and even avert a
plague. He was also famous as a natural scientist, investigating geology and meteorology, and he was
responsible, like a true philosopher, for theories and writings both on scientific and social subjects.

Empedocles is the originator of the theory of the Four Elements—Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. This concept
continues to be a mainstay of Western Esoteric thought, long after it ceased to be “scientific” theory—though
interestingly it does approximate current classifications of the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and
plasma. For Empedocles, a cosmic attractive force he called “love” united the elements, and an opposite
repellent force called “strife” forced them apart. In his theory, “like attracts like;” similar elements or
combinations of elements came together with the force of “love,” and vice versa. Again, this “like attracts like”
concept would become a mainstay of esoteric and magical theory, while superseded by more accurate
scientific theories as a descriptor of the material world.

Empedocles, like his predecessor Pythagoras, is firmly in the tradition of Orphism and its philosophical heir,
Pythagoreanism. Empedocles, like the Pythagoreans, preached of reincarnation and the entry into the
Underworld. In his poetry, and probably in his own preaching, Empedocles advertised the possibility of
becoming immortal and divine, even claiming that he himself had gone beyond the material world to become a
god. This is the background of the well-known myth that Empedocles met his end by leaping into the fiery
crater of Mount Etna. Whether he actually did so or not, this action was seen as a symbol of entering into the
Underworld to be transformed and resurrected as a god, and thus became a part of the legend of this Greek
holy man.

According to E.R. Dodds, and more recently Peter Kingsley in his book ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, MYSTERY,
AND MAGIC, Empedocles is a classic example of what the ancient Greeks called the “iatromantis,” or “healer-
prophet.” Dodds goes so far as to call these figures “Greek shamans,” and cites their similarities to shamans
that were already evident in the figure of Orpheus. But these “iatromantis” philosophers were natural scientists
as well as poets, and they were also magicians. This is not the popular idea of “magic” as superstition and
trickery, but a philosophical magic, which aspired to achieve real goals by symbolic action. This magic was
connected with the search for immortality and a perception of unitary, divine reality, whether this was done
through ritual, initiations, or techniques of inner journeying. This magic is not “primitive” or “regressive” as
many scholars of Greek thought and mysticism continue to describe it—it is actually a feature of the
“extrovertive” form of mysticism, which uses symbols and rituals to do its work, and is oriented toward making
changes in the outer world. Indeed, magic of this sort works in its own form of rationalist system.

From these religious and philosophical ancestors comes Plato, perhaps the most famous of all Greek
philosophers and certainly the most influential for the development of Western mysticism. Plato (c. 428–348
BCE) taught the foundational Theory of Forms—which was part of his own “Theory of Everything.” In the
Platonic Theory of Forms, (also called “ideas,”) the ultimate Reality is situated in a supersensible, “intelligible
world,” above our material world; it is a place of ideal and perfect forms, as it were archetypal blueprints, of
everything here below. This world can be accessed by the human mind, either through philosophical work or
through mystical intuition. According to Plato, all of us are endowed with the knowledge of this inner world of
forms—but it takes work and dedication to know it. In fact, when we do learn about the Forms, Plato says we
are really “remembering” them as a heritage of our ultimate unity with this divine world, which we have
forgotten once we took birth in the material world. We have lost the memory of the World of Ideas by being
exiled into the world of matter, through many incarnations. But our souls are immortal, ultimately made of the
same stuff as Plato’s Ideas, and so gaining knowledge, at least this Platonic knowledge, is actually a
recollection of the soul’s original knowing.

These ideas of reincarnation, initiatory philosophical knowledge, and an inner, supersensible world sound
familiar. In fact, Plato visited South Italy and Sicily several times, and there he studied and learned from
Pythagorean schools the ancient sacred doctrine that the Pythagoreans had inherited from the Orphics. And
even the old shamanic paradigm of the mystical life and the “holy man” or “healer-prophet” can be seen in
Plato, but abstracted and made philosophical rather than religious or magical. In Plato’s more mystical
dialogues such as the SYMPOSIUM, PHAEDO, or the REPUBLIC, the old visionary journey to the Underworld
becomes a vision of the World of Forms. This is explicitly described in the famous passage of the ascent from
the cave of illusions depicted in the REPUBLIC (beginning of Book 7). In the SYMPOSIUM the metaphor is
that of an ascent to the World of Forms, motivated by erotic and aesthetic love. But in these philosophical
parables one can still see the shamanic idea of the detachable soul rising above the corrupt body, escaping
from the prison of the material and radically separate from it, going through the purifications of many incarnate
lives, until by right living and the practice of philosophy the soul can end its imprisonment and rejoin the
ecstatic divine world that is its true home.

Once again concerning Plato there arises the question of whether there is a Zoroastrian influence in his
thought. The PHAEDO especially contains myths, which seem to imitate the “eschatology” of Zoroastrian
myth, such as the survival of an immortal soul, which is then judged after death and “purified” by fire. The
Platonic “world of Ideas” has often been compared to the Zoroastrian “menok” world of “mental” or spiritual
realities, intimated in Zarathushtra’s Gathas and elaborated by later Zoroastrian thinkers. The myth of a
visionary ascent survives in Zoroastrian legends of both Zarathushtra’s inspiration and other holy men who
were able to cross by soul-travel into the “intelligible world” and return with knowledge to be shared with other
souls here below.

But there are just as many differences as similarities in Platonic and Greek thought. Zoroastrianism,
throughout its history (except for those Zoroastrians who came under Buddhist and Hindu influence) has never
taught reincarnation. There is for a Zoroastrian no sorrowful wheel of incarnations to escape from—there is
only one life, in which moral choices for good or evil must be constantly made. For Zoroastrians there is no
sharp division between the soul and the body, as there was for the Orphics and their followers; the physical
and the mental worlds are constantly interacting and influencing each other. In Zoroastrianism, the human soul
is not a fragment or an emanation of the Divine which seeks reintegration; rather each individual soul is
accompanied by a divine spirit, known as a “fravashi,” created by God, which embodies the highest potential
of the individual living soul. It is this fravashi which, according to some Zoroastrian theories, unites with the
human soul after death.

The philosophical way, for Plato and the Presocratics, was an aristocratic way of knowledge. All of these
philosophers maintain that only the few, the initiates, and the privileged can travel this way. Certainly it is true
socially, since for most people the simple demands of making a living and caring for a family make it
impossible to spend time on the pursuit of esoteric philosophical enlightenment. The Pythagorean way of life is
indeed a monastic way, lived long before Christian monastics worked out a similar solution to the problem of
how to live the life of spiritual striving in a chaotic and corrupt world. Plato’s mysticism is also more toward the
“introverted” type, which is less dependent on rituals and less connected with mystery-cults or magic, and thus
more acceptable to intellectuals who disdain magic as popular superstition. This division between an
aristocratic “pure” tradition of “introverted” philosophical mysticism, and a more popularizing “extroverted”
mysticism of cult, magic, and easily accessible and workable esoteric formulae, became a standard feature of
the Western esoteric tradition; it is even visible today. And yet throughout the history of mysticism, there have
been those who practiced both kinds—especially the “theurgists” of later antiquity, whose practice reached
from the heights of Platonic abstraction to the smoky underworld of ceremonial magic. The division has never
been unbridgeable.

One generation after Plato, the western world changed irrevocably. Once Alexander of Macedon (known in the
west as Alexander the Great) with his invading Greek armies conquered the Eastern Mediterranean lands, and
the Persian Empire all the way to the borders of India, the world expanded. In the era of multinational empire
that followed, which is called the “Hellenistic era,” (from 330BCE to about 100 CE or the rise of the Roman
Empire) the Western world became far less isolated, and a general mixing of Eastern and Western civilizations
occurred. The “Oriental” influences which had up until now been part of only the Eastern Greek world now
flooded into the whole Mediterranean, facilitated by the common language of Greek and lines of trade and
communication which spread throughout the new empire (or successions of more local Hellenistic empires).

The intellectual world of the Hellenistic era reflects the unprecedented mixing of cultures that went on
throughout the Mediterranean. This went on especially in the new city of Alexandria, the capital of the
Hellenistic world, where Greek, Egyptian, Iranian, Mesopotamian, Jewish, and dozens of other traditions met
and were melded together to form various new philosophies and esoteric practices. This mixture of traditions,
which is known to scholars as “syncretism,” will forever after be a feature in esoteric and mystical philosophy.

In Hellenistic mysticism, which for the most part used Greek language and Greek literary forms, the classical
mystical stance inherited from Plato was enriched with a new, cosmic, universal emphasis. This reflects the
transition from a religious world with a local horizon and local gods to a cosmopolitan world where everyone’s
gods (or One God) were on view and people could compare them. The individualism of Greek mysticism
remained, but its backdrop was now a world of impersonal empires rather than local city-states.

Yet in the new forms of Hellenistic mystical philosophy, one can still discern the ancient ideas which are the
heritage of Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plato. This is sometimes the result of actual migrations of
philosophers and their schools; many Pythagoreans, rejected in Sicily for political reasons, found a new home
in Alexandria, where they carried on their esoteric traditions in a new atmosphere. More often, though, the
development of Hellenistic philosophy came through literary study and learned revivals. It did not, as many
modern esoteric schools would like to believe, come from an unbroken chain of “secret initiates” whose
traditions have been handed on since the time of Atlantis (itself perhaps an invention of Plato in his treatise
TIMAEUS). Under the ideological leadership of those who followed Plato, the Hellenistic complex of ideas
became what is known to us as “Neo-Platonism” (though the term was unknown to the philosophers
themselves, who simply called themselves “Platonists”).

Neo-Platonism and its related philosophies show many of the same ideas as their predecessors, transformed
in their new multicultural home. Most of the Hellenistic mystical philosophies think of the Universe, or Cosmos,
as one living being, whose parts are in an organic relationship with each other and which possesses a cosmic
sentience, sometimes called the “World-Soul.” We have met with this idea as early as Pythagoras. For the
Hellenists, all things in this sentient Cosmos are connected by what is called “sumpatheia,” (from which our
word “sympathy” comes). This literally means “feeling-with” but it actually means “correspondence” or “active
similarity;” it is the mechanism by which “like attracts like.” Centuries ago, Empedocles had taught much the
same thing.

Another major feature of Hellenistic philosophy is what might be called “emanationism.” The seed for this
derives from the old philosophical quest to figure out how one single divine Unity could create our world of
visible multiplicity. Already in Plato’s thought there is the divine world of Forms and then the material world
created from those Forms. As Platonism develops in its Hellenistic home, the layers of reality multiply. Neo-
platonists, possibly influenced by monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Zoroastrianism, propose a
single, ineffable, indescribable God who then emanates an Intelligible World, from which then, in yet another
stage, flows the multiplicity of the visible world. This threefold system blooms into systems of seven
emanations, and then more; full-blown emanationist systems can contain myriad layers of worlds, reaching
from the totally abstract Divine at the top to hellish underworlds below. The Hellenistic innerworld is a very
complex place.

This “multiverse” is not always ruled by a benevolent, provident God or by the impersonal but morally upright
rule of Logos or Law. The Hellenistic era sees the rise of deterministic philosophies, which teach that all is
ordained by Fate and Destiny. Ancient Greek philosophy and religion had its ideas of Fate, often personified as
a goddess; Hellenistic Fate extends to the whole cosmos. The word for Destiny or Fate in Greek is
“heimarmene,” from the the Greek “meiromai” which means, “to receive one’s portion.” But here, the “portion”
is not allotted by a god, but by an impersonal, irrevocable mechanism driven by the movements of planets and
stars. It is in the Hellenistic world that astrology, derived from Greek interpretations of very old Mesopotamian
star-lore, becomes a major factor in intellectual life. The seven ancient planets (sun, moon, Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) are the agents of Destiny, often depicted as hostile. It is a reflection, perhaps, of life
lived no longer in a village or a small-scale city-state but in a great empire where the government is
inaccessible and the ruler may well have proclaimed himself a divine being. “Heimarmene” or Destiny
becomes the ultimate arbiter of peoples’ lives—and bears the weight and oppression of the overbearing
multiverse.

How can we escape our grim, astrologically determined Destiny? This was a burning question for the
thoughtful Hellenistic intellectual. How can we flee from our figurative dungeon in the lower reaches of a many-
storied cosmic skyscraper? There is an audible echo here of the ever-ancient shamanic “soul journey” away
from the material through the inner worlds to the place of knowledge and salvation. For some philosophers,
that escape would come, as it did for the Pythagoreans centuries earlier, through the initiatory possession of
the sacred secret Knowledge which would set one free. For those who were more magically inclined, the
chains of Heimarmene could be broken by the proper rituals, done at the proper time and place. And many
people who were not philosophers put their trust in prayers for the soul after death, inscribed on gold foil and
placed lovingly on the bodies of their dead. As modern archaeologists have discovered, these popular prayers
for the dead contain some of the same ideas about transcendence, freedom, and divinization that the Orphics
and Empedocles had preached almost a millennium earlier.

The story of ancient Greek mysticism, then, is one of continuity through different cultures. There is something
about the archaic shamanic paradigm of soul-journey, secret knowledge, and inner worlds, which will not go
away. It cannot be suppressed, only transformed. Under the sway of rationalistic philosophies, or of
monotheistic orthodoxy such as was later imposed by Christianity and Islam, it does not die; it simply goes
underground. The mysticism of symbols, magic, visionary techniques, innerworld journeys, and esoteric
“science” is cast into the ideological shadows and denigrated as “primitive,” “retrogressive,” “occultist” or
“superstitious,” but it continues to exist with its own special power, which attracts souls from one civilization to
another, from age to age, a calling which continues to sound even to this very day.
Indian religions[edit]
Buddhism[edit]

Main article: Buddhism

The main aim of Buddhism is liberation from the cycle of rebirth, by enlarging self-awareness and self-control. The
Buddhist tradition rejects the notion of a permanent self, but does have a strong tradition of metaphysical
essentialism, especially Yogacara and the Buddha-nature doctrine. The Madhyamaka tradition lends itself to both a
non-metaphysical interpretation, as exemplified by the rangtong philosophy of Tsongkhapa, but also to a "mystical"
interpretation, as exemplified by the shentong philosophy of both the Dzogchen tradition and Dolpopa. The Two
truths doctrine reconciles absolute and relative reality, but is likewise differently interpreted. Chinese and Japanese
is grounded on the Chinse understanding of the Buddha-nature and the Two truths doctrine. [50][51] It was the
Japanese Zen-scholar D.T. Suzuki who noted similarities between Buddhism and Christian mysticism.[52]

Hinduism[edit]

Main article: Hinduism

Hinduism has a number of interlinked ascetic traditions and philosophical schools which aim at moksha[53] and the
acquisition of higher powers.[54] With the onset of the British colonisation of India, those traditions came to be
interpreted in western terms such as "mysticism", drawing equivalents with western terms and practices. [55]

Yoga is the physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which aim to attain a state of permanent peace.
[56]
Various traditions of yoga are found in Hinduism, Buddhismand Jainism.[57][58][59][58] The Yoga Sūtras of
Patañjali defines yoga as "the stilling of the changing states of the mind,"[60] which is attained in samadhi.

Classical Vedanta gives philosophical interpretations and commentaries of the Upanishads, a vast collection of
ancient hymns. At least ten schools of Vedanta are known, [61] of which Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita,
and Dvaita are the best known.[62] Advaita Vedanta, as expounded by Adi Shankara, states that there is no
difference between Atmanand Brahman. The best-known subschool is Kevala Vedanta or mayavada as expounded
by Adi Shankara. Advaita Vedanta has acquired a broad acceptance in Indian culture and beyond as the
paradigmatic example of Hindu spirituality.[63] In contrast Bhedabheda-Vedanta emphasizes that Atamn and
Brahman are both the same and not the same,[64]while Dvaita Vedanta states that Atman and God are fundamentally
different.[64] In modern times, the Upanishads have been interpreted by Neo-Vedanta as being "mystical".[55]

Various Shaivist traditions are strongly nondualistic, such as Kashmir Shaivism and Shaiva Siddhanta.

Tantra[edit]

Main article: Tantra

Tantra is the name given by scholars to a style of meditation and ritual which arose in India no later than the fifth
century AD.[65] Tantra has influenced the Hindu, Bön, Buddhist, and Jain traditions and spread with
Buddhism to East and Southeast Asia.[66] Tantric ritual seeks to access the supra-mundane through the mundane,
identifying the microcosmwith the macrocosm.[67] The Tantric aim is to sublimate (rather than negate) reality.[68] The
Tantric practitioner seeks to use prana (energy flowing through the universe, including one's body) to attain goals
which may be spiritual, material or both.[69] Tantric practice includes visualisation of deities, mantras and mandalas. It
can also include sexual and other (antinomian) practices.[citation needed]
Sikhism[edit]

Guru Nanak and Bhai Mardana

Mysticism in the Sikh dharm began with its founder, Guru Nanak, who as a child had profound mystical
experiences.[70] Guru Nanak stressed that God must be seen with 'the inward eye', or the 'heart', of a human being.
[71]
Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, added religious mystics belonging to other religions into the holy scriptures that
would eventually become the Guru Granth Sahib.

The goal of Sikhism is to be one with God.[72] Sikhs meditate as a means to progress towards enlightenment; it is
devoted meditation simran that enables a sort of communication between the Infinite and finite
human consciousness.[73] There is no concentration on the breath but chiefly the remembrance of God through the
recitation of the name of God[74] and surrender themselves to Gods presence often metaphorized as surrendering
themselves to the Lord's feet.[75]

East-Asian mysticsm[edit]
Taoism[edit]

Main article: Taoism

Taoist philosophy is centered on the Tao, usually translated "Way", an ineffable cosmic principle. The contrasting
yet interdependent concepts of yin and yang also symbolise harmony, with Taoist scriptures often emphasing
the Yin virtues of femininity, passivity and yieldingness.[76] Taoist practice includes exercises and rituals aimed at
manipulating the life force Qi, and obtaining health and longevity.[note 9] These have been elaborated into practices
such as Tai chi, which are well known in the west.

Islamic mysticism[edit]

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Main article: Sufism

Sufism is said to be Islam's inner and mystical dimension.[44][45][46] Classical Sufi scholars have defined Sufism as

[A] science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God. [47]

A practitioner of this tradition is nowadays known as a ṣūfī (‫صوُففيي‬

‫) ص‬, or, in earlier usage, a dervish. The origin of the
word "Sufi" is ambiguous. One understanding is that Sufi means wool-wearer- wool wearers during early Islam were
pious ascetics who withdrew from urban life. Another explanation of the word "Sufi" is that it means 'purity'. [48]

Sufis generally belong to a khalqa, a circle or group, led by a Sheikh or Murshid. Sufi circles usually belong to
a Tariqawhich is the Sufi order and each has a Silsila, which is the spiritual lineage, which traces its succession
back to notable Sufis of the past, and often ultimately to the prophet Muhammed or one of his close associates.
The turuq (plural oftariqa) are not enclosed like Christian monastic orders; rather the members retain an outside life.
Membership of a Sufi group often passes down family lines. Meetings may or may not be segregated according to
the prevailing custom of the wider society. An existing Muslim faith is not always a requirement for entry, particularly
in Western countries.

Mawlānā Rumi's tomb, Konya, Turkey

Sufi practice includes

 Dhikr, or remembrance (of God), which often takes the form of rhythmic chanting and breathing exercises.
 Sema, which takes the form of music and dance — the whirling dance of the Mevlevi dervishes is a form
well known in the West.

 Muraqaba or meditation.

 Visiting holy places, particularly the tombs of Sufi saints, in order to absorb barakah, or spiritual energy.

The aims of Sufism include: the experience of ecstatic states (hal), purification of the heart (qalb), overcoming the
lower self (nafs), extinction of the individual personality (fana), communion with God (haqiqa), and higher
knowledge (marifat). Some sufic beliefs and practices have been found unorthodox by other Muslims; for
instance Mansur al-Hallaj was put to death for blasphemy after uttering the phrase Ana'l Haqq, "I am the Truth" (i.e.
God) in a trance.

Notable classical Sufis include Jalaluddin Rumi, Fariduddin Attar, Sultan Bahoo, Saadi Shirazi and Hafez, all major
poets in the Persian language. Omar Khayyam, Al-Ghazzali and Ibn Arabi were renowned scholars. Abdul Qadir
Jilani, Moinuddin Chishti, and Bahauddin Naqshband founded major orders, as did Rumi. Rabia Basri was the most
prominent female Sufi.

Sufism first came into contact with the Judea-Christian world during the Moorish occupation of Spain. An interest in
Sufism revived in non-Muslim countries during the modern era, led by such figures as Inayat Khan and Idries
Shah (both in the UK), Rene Guenon (France) and Ivan Aguéli (Sweden). Sufism has also long been present in
Asian countries that do not have a Muslim majority, such as India and China.[49]