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Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition

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Peter Kingsley's Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic presents an insightful and informative look at the Pythagorian tradition, with particular focus on Empedocles. Kingsley suggests that much of early 20th Century scholarship has failed to understand important aspects of the presocratic thinkers, in that modern scholarship imposes an artifical distinction between "rational" and "mystical" elements in these thinkers. Kingsley suggests that for the presocratics science and religion were a unified whole which can be properly understood only when we grant as much importance to the mythic or metaphoric mode of presocratic thought, as is currently granted to the literal and scientific aspects. Kingsley sees a major change in thought occuring with Plato and Aristotle, and views the latter as eliminating many of the mythical aspects which would have been understood by a contemporary audience. Kingsley ties Pythagoreanism and Orphism to Plato, and suggests a cultural whole that would have formed the background for Plato's thought. Kingsley supports his suggestions with excellent scholarship and anyone interested in the presocratics, Pythagorians or Orphics should consider this book required reading. Kingsley's style is easy to read and idea provoking. Kingsley draws on a wide range of knowledge, relating in a scholarly manner ideas contained in Empedolces and other Pythagoreans, to Hermeticism and even Arabic Sufism. Kingsley offers ample footnotes and citations.

Peter Kingsley's ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, MYSTERY, AND MAGIC should be read by all students of western philosophy, as well as by anyone interested in thought and scholarship. Here is a work that shines a light into ancient Greek thought, and calls into question the motives and standards of ancient - and unfortunately modern - scholarship.

By itself, this makes the book worthy of wide attention. But what is more is that Kingsley brings philosophy back to its roots, helping enormously in the unpopular effort to shake us out of our current philosophical stupor and fascination with pointless 'problems.'

The book is written in a formal, academic style, unlike Kinglsey's later work. Those unfamiliar with this kind of writing may be put off (as is evidenced by some of the reviews here) by such 'intrusions' as foot and endnotes, and by the careful effort Kingsley has given to covering all the bases in order to create the most sound argument possible. Nevertheless, the book is not difficult to read by any means, especially when compared to most western philosophy today. Far from being evidence of Kingsley's wish to be pompous, or to impress colleagues, this style of writing is simply demanded by serious scholars, who were certainly among the primary targets of this book. One will not even be read by one's colleagues without writing in this established way. Had he not used this style, Kingsley would not have been taken seriously, and would have disappeared into the ranks of unpublished writers. That he was taken seriously by the elite of academia is seen by some of the reviews ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY received from them:

"A masterpiece, gripping, urgent and important: a unique pioneering work."
EUROPEAN REVIEW OF HISTORY (Oxford/Paris)

"The thesis is argued with immense learning ... courageous, original."
THE TIMES (London)

"A remarkable achievement: challenging, learned and at the same time enthralling to read."
CLASSICAL REVIEW (Oxford)

"Bold and extremely significant ... Kingsley's book may well be the most important book about Presocratic philosophy in years, and it is certainly one of the most exciting, challenging, and stimulating."
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW (Washington DC)

"Every scholar dreams of writing a truly original book, but in reality hardly anyone ever does. A truly original book, one that can transform a whole discipline, appears at the most once in a generation. In the field of ancient philosophy, Peter Kingsley's Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic is such a book."
PROF. A. A. LONG, University of California at Berkeley

My guess as to why Kinglsey wrote in the standard academic style before switching to an informal one is that he wanted to establish himself as someone who was not a crackpot, before delving into the territory that he has with his second and third books. No respected scholar with a job to keep would dare to say what Kingsley has said in these later works. The sad fact is that if he had held a distinguished position in one of the top ten universities of the world, he would have been out on the street in no time had he published IN THE DARK PLACES OF WISDOM or REALITY, and that just goes to show what a sad state academia - higher `learning' - is in.

Read this book first, then read the others. If you have an open mind, and have the creative ability to try on a new set of mental clothing, you'll be rewarded.

I always found it strange that most modern scholars believed that their understanding of Plato was superior to that of Neoplatonists like Iamblichus, who lived almost two thousand years closer to Plato than we do, and who doubtless had access to contextual materials now lost. Kingsley's book goes some way toward reconstructing this context, and in so doing indicates that Iamblichus and other antique philosophers often regarded as "degenerate" compared to the Platonic/Aristotelian "purity" were instead the bearers of a tradition with deep roots in pre-Socratic, even shamanistic, soil. A key figure in this suppressed lineage, according to Kingsley, was Empedocles, well-known for his doctrine of the elements, but little-known until now as an esoteric ancestor of magic, alchemy and Sufism. I consider a book important if, after reading it, the familiar has become strange again. Along with the works of D Merkur and G Shaw, we may be seeing the birth of a new and rigourous form of antique esoteric scholarship.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. I'm a Classics professor, and it's one of the best Classics books I've ever read, and it's more than that; it goes beyond the trends in current scholarship (which always operates in fads) to get at what the ancient Greeks were all about and why we can still learn from them. Written with real verve, a true eye-opener. It also transcends the silly "East vs. West" thinking that still dominates today. Read Kingsley. He does nothing less than re-direct our attention and thinking.

This book is important for several reasons. One of them is that Kingsley attempts to shake the ancient Greek scholarship by suggesting that Empedocles' Fragments need to be interpreted through language of the preclassical (~500 BC; ie, Empedocles') rather than classical (ie, Pericles) period. Here Kingsley is on firm ground, displaying an impressive familiarity with the Illiad and other preclassical literature. Bringing philology back on the map he continues the basic approach by Nietzsche and Heidegger.

More importantly, PK brings philosophical inquiry into the domain of phenomenology of religion. if we wish to understand the presocratics we need primarily to understand their state of consciousness and their relationship to the spiritual sphere. While most classical scholars would argue that one can achieve such an understanding through deciphering the language, literature, history, art and economy of a society, the alternative view (championed by PK) is that attempts to explain Empedocles' philosophy in terms of ordinary social, political, etc. circumstance inevitably miss something that is not reducible to facts alone. It misses its essence, a foundation of Beingness where philosophy reflects the nature of human experience and its capacity to interact with the 'transpersonal' or numinous. A capacity that by no means is uniquely Greek.

This is why classical scholarship addressing ancient (Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian etc) consciousness should not be entrusted to 'ordinary' scholarly nitpickers alone. The historian W. Brede once said: "When religion is the subject of our work, we grow religiously." Peter Kingsley is that rare scholar (an ex-Warburg fellow, no less) who appears to have been sucked into the ancient Pythagorean texts and magical practices they describe and emerged out of his studies a changed man.

This book is a first step describing PKs beliefs about an inner meaning of Pythagoreanism (elegantly discussed in later books such as Reality) ...

The book starts with a technical reinterpretation of the theory of 4 Elements ("the 4 Roots") for which Empedocles is mainly known; then continues with a critical evaluation of classical views of Empedocles; PK claims that Aristotle purposefully distorted E.s ideas whereas Plato actually appropriated many Pythagorean concepts following his visits to Pyth. communities in Southern Italy and Sicily. Appropriated and then pretended they were his own. To prove this, PK performs a detailed textual analysis of Phaedo.

Egypt and ancient Greece shared a number of intellectual, philosophical and religious practices, from mathematics to the mysteries of death & rebirth (practiced in Eleusinian rituals) and the shamanic descent into the Underworld (seen in Orphic mysteries, Hermetic practices and 'funerary inscriptions' such as the Pyramid texts). Both Plato and Pythagoras spent a long time in Egypt and Empedocles, a direct heir of Pythagoras, would have been intimately aware of Egyptian religious beliefs. The circle was completed when Empedoclean texts returned to the Egyptian desert through Greek (gnostic, hermetic) communities living in the Egyptian desert. PK shows that certain Sufi texts from Egypt and even alchemical texts from the Middle Ages directly follow E.s writings and beliefs.

There is a remarkable discussion of Pythagorean magic, initiatory rites, practice of 'incubation' and Orphic mysteries. The book is worth buying just for that third part.

"...I am a lover of learning, and trees and open country won't teach me anything, whereas men in the town do.", sez Socrates in Phaedrus, one of the most eloquent and lyrical dialogues by Plato. Kingsley's life work seems to be to show that the course our civilization took after Plato was in a sense a deviation, both from the Earth, the archetypal forces inhabiting it, and our own deepest nature. He argues a good case in this courageous work.

I was led to this book by John Opsopaus' superb "Pythagorean Tarot," wherein he mentions that Kingsley demonstrated that Empedocles was a shaman ("iatromantis," that is). Everything said about this book so far is true: It *is* an interesting and valuable read; it *is* highly technical; and Kingsley definitely takes on every other classical scholar in clearing the air, removing historical debris and cultural bias, and establishing a new standard of personal involvement in classical scholarship. My take is that one can get the gist of his conclusions in chapters 15 & 19 (and perhaps 20 & 22), without wading through all the scholarly minutae. This groundwork was probably necessary to remove the blinders from our collective eyes imposed by an earlier generation of Greek scholars overly wowed by science and strangely detached from personal experience. In the end, I look forward to reading Kingsley's "Dark Places of Wisdom."

This was Kingsley's first book, written before he went a little mad and started telling stories about how shamanism is actually the root of Greek and therefore Western culture (the last I checked, Tibetan and Native American shamans didn't know too much about, oh, geometry or logic or mathematics or science or any of that silly stuff Kingsley seems to think is a relatively trivial aspect of Western civilization). If the Greeks stole their culture from anywhere, and I am not sure they did, it was Egypt; and if the Egyptians stole it, it was probably from Northern Europe (there are stones representing the "Platonic" solids from Scotland, older by far than the pyramids, as is Stonehenge; and check out Jurgen Spanuth for the history of the invasion of Greece from the North that started the first Greek dark age).
In retrospect this is his best book; certainly the only one in which he actually tries to make a case for what he writes. The later books are little more than fantasy novels aimed at new agers, and I am sure therefore far more popular than this one.