Peter Kingsley (scholar)
Encyclopedia
Peter Kingsley is the author of four books and numerous articles on ancient philosophy, including Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, Reality, and A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World. He has written extensively on the pre-Socratic
philosophers Parmenides
and Empedocles
and the world they lived in.
, in north London
, until 1971. He graduated with honours from the University of Lancaster in 1975, and went on to receive the degree of Master of Letters from the University of Cambridge
after study at King's College
; subsequently, he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of London
.
A former Fellow of the Warburg Institute
in London
, Kingsley has been made an honorary professor both at Simon Fraser University
in Canada
and at the University of New Mexico
. He has lectured widely in North America.
Kingsley has noted in public interviews that he is sometimes misunderstood as a scholar who gradually moved away from academic objectivity to a personal involvement with his subject matter. However, Kingsley himself has stated that he is, and always has been, a mystic
, and that his spiritual experience stands in the background of his entire career, not just his most recent work.
He currently resides in the greater Asheville, North Carolina area.
or scientific
enterprises, were in fact expressions of a wider Greek
mystical tradition that helped give rise to western philosophy
and civilization
. This tradition, according to Kingsley, was a way of life leading to the direct experience of reality and the recognition of one’s divinity. Yet, as Kingsley stresses, this was no “otherworldly” mysticism: its chief figures were also lawgivers, diplomats, physicians, and even military men. The texts produced by this tradition are seamless fabrics of what later thought would distinguish as the separate areas of mysticism, science, healing, and art.
Parmenides, most famous as the “father of western logic” and traditionally viewed as a rationalist, was a priest of Apollo
and iatromantis
(lit. healer-prophet). Empedocles, who outlined an elaborate cosmology
that introduced the enormously influential idea of the four elements
into western philosophy and science, was a mystic and a magician. Kingsley reads the poems of Parmenides and Empedocles as esoteric, initiatory texts designed to lead the reader to a direct experience of the oneness of reality and the realization of his or her own divinity. A significant implication of this reading is that western logic and science originally had a deeply spiritual purpose.
Kingsley’s reading of early Greek philosophy and, in particular, of Parmenides and Empedocles, is at odds with most of the established interpretations. However, Kingsley contends that later ancient philosophers such as Plato
, Aristotle
, and Theophrastus
, among others, misinterpreted and distorted their predecessors; hence, conventional scholarship that uncritically accepts their misrepresentations of the presocratics is necessarily flawed. Kingsley’s procedure is to read presocratic texts in historical and geographical context, giving particular attention to the Southern Italian
and Sicilian
backgrounds of Parmenides and Empedocles. Additionally, he reads the poems of Parmenides and Empedocles as esoteric and mystical texts, a hermeneutical perspective that, according to Kingsley, is both indicated by the textual and historical evidence and also provides the only way to solve many problems of interpretation and text criticism. In his more recent work, Kingsley argues that esoteric texts designed to record or induce mystical experiences can never be understood from an “outsider’s perspective”; understanding must come from a reader’s lived experience—or not at all.
and Empedocles
as representatives of a mystical tradition that helped give rise to western philosophy and civilization and that is still available to people today. Kingsley argues that this tradition is of profound importance and has something essential to offer, both inside the world of academic philosophy and beyond in the wider, contemporary West. Though Parmenides and Empedocles are often viewed as philosophical antagonists, Kingsley argues that beneath the superficial or apparent differences, the two men are profoundly united by the common essence of this one tradition, a connection that finds expression in their intimately connected understandings of reality, the body and the senses, language
, death
, and divine
consciousness
.
Parmenides and Empedocles are united by, among other things, a somewhat unorthodox mysticism with respect to the body and the senses. Empedocles’ cosmology, both born out of and directed towards mystical experience, deeply influences the peculiarities of the spiritual path as he offered it. Empedocles described a cosmic cycle consisting of the uniting and separation of the four divine “roots,” or elements, of earth
, aithêr or air
, fire
, and water
. The divine power of Love (at times simply called Aphrodite
), in Empedocles’ cosmology, brought the elements together into one, while the divine power of Strife separated them out from each other. For Empedocles, then, there is nothing in the cosmos
that is not divine. Thus, there is nothing to “leave behind” as one travels the spiritual path. His mysticism is not what one might anticipate—the ascetic strain of shutting out the senses or dissociation from the body. While many forms of mysticism reject and renounce the supposed crudity of matter
and the senses for something higher or loftier, Empedocles does not, teaching instead the conscious use of the senses themselves as a path to recognizing the divine in everything—including oneself. Similarly, Kingsley argues that the imagery and wording of the proem, or introductory part, of Parmenides’ poem record an initiate's descent to the underworld
and indicate a mystical background connected to the ancient practice of healing and meditation known as incubation
.
More than just a medical technique, incubation was said to allow a human being to experience a fourth state of consciousness different from sleeping, dream
ing, or ordinary waking: a state that Kingsley describes as “consciousness itself” and likens to the turiya
or samadhi
of the Indian yogic
traditions. Kingsley supports this reading of the proem with the archeological evidence from the excavations of Parmenides’ hometown of Velia
, or Elea, in Southern Italy
. This evidence, according to Kingsley, demonstrates that Parmenides was a practicing priest of Apollo
, and would therefore have used incubatory techniques as a matter of course for healing, prophecy, and meditation. As Kingsley notes, this physical evidence from Velia merely conforms to and confirms the incubatory context already suggested by the proem itself. In Kingsley’s understanding of this mystical tradition, the descent to the underworld is deeply connected with the conscious experience of the body—it is, in reality, a conscious descent into the depths and darkness of the very sensation of the physical body. Thus, in contrast to mystical paths that hope to “transcend” the physical, embodied state, Parmenides and Empedocles both find the divine in and through the body and the senses.
The deep sympathy between the teachings of Parmenides and Empedocles is also found in the central, logical part of Parmenides’ poem, often referred to as “Fragment Eight” or “The Way of Truth.” As Kingsley notes, Parmenides’ logic aims at demonstrating that reality is changeless, whole, unborn and immortal, and one—a description strikingly similar to the ways in which absolute reality is described in many mystical traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta
, Zen
, and Dzogchen
. That this is no mere material
or metaphysical
monism
is indicated by the initiatory motifs of the proem; the setting and hymnal
language of Fragment Eight; the unnamed goddess as the speaker of these words; and the figure of the historical Parmenides as priest of Apollo. Kingsley reads Parmenides as saying that this “ultimate reality” is not on some supercelestial plane, but rather is very simply the reality of the world all around us. We live in an unborn and deathless world of oneness, wholeness, and changelessness—but we are unable to recognize it because mortal perception itself is dualistic. Thus, as in Empedocles, everything in Parmenides’ cosmos is divine—and, importantly, the divine is not “somewhere else,” but rather, right here and now.
Language, too, plays a crucial role in the teachings of Parmenides and Empedocles, and there are deep affinities here as well. Parmenides’ nameless goddess consistently mimics those mortal habits of duality responsible for our imperfect perception of reality in her elenchos, or spoken demonstration, caricaturing the “twin-headed” mortals to whom she is speaking, using divine logic to reveal unity. Thus, the “truth” of Fragment Eight is distinctly paradoxical and reflects the apparent duality and paradox of undivided reality. The goddess’ cunning use of language, humor, and paradox to undermine what she calls “mortal opinion” and establish reality indicates the fundamental importance of the word in Parmenides’ teaching. When Empedocles continues the line in his poetry, the same profound importance accorded to the word in Parmenides is very much in evidence. Empedocles tells his disciple that his words are actually living things
with consciousness
and will
. His words are esoteric seeds that must be planted in the earth of the body and tended with good will, purity, and attention—since they possess the power, if treated properly, to germinate and grow into divine awareness. Empedocles’ poetry contains what is needed for this organic process to take place.
Parmenides
and Empedocles
are also united by a shared understanding of death and, in particular, its role in the mystical path. While all readings of Empedocles recognize that his cosmology
involves the four roots of earth, air or aithêr, fire, and water, united by Love and separated by Strife, Kingsley differs radically from most readers of Empedocles, ancient and modern, with respect to the ordering and significance of the cycle. He argues that most readings of Empedocles are grossly incorrect and essentially backwards, noting that Empedocles begins each cycle with the elements in a state of separation, followed by a blending under the influence of Love, then finally a return to the original state of separation under Strife. This, however, is not some kind of cosmic pessimism, unless one misunderstands what Empedocles is really saying.
According to Kingsley, if one follows Empedocles’ words carefully, one sees that the elements, while separate, exist in a state of immortality
and purity. When they are brought together by Love or Aphrodite
they are essentially seduced into incarnate, mortal existence and mixture—and thus an existence foreign to their true natures of immortality and purity. Consequently, when they are separated again by Strife, this is not cause for lament: it is the liberation of the elements from the unnatural and forced condition brought about by Love and a return to immortality and purity. This reading of Empedocles is highly suggestive of similar Orphic and Pythagorean
views of incarnation
, divinization
, and death. Parmenides, in turn, travels to the depths of the underworld
—the world of death—and meets a goddess whom Kingsley identifies as Persephone
, the queen of the dead. It is only by making this journey that Parmenides is able to learn the truth about reality and mortal opinion
and return to the world of the living with his prophetic message. Thus, both Empedocles and Parmenides, like other mystics, find wisdom, healing, and eternal life in what most people suppose to be the dark and grim reality of death. As Kingsley puts it, the essential requirement for traveling this spiritual path is that, “You have to die before you die.”
Finally, both Parmenides and Empedocles stress the necessity of reaching divine stillness by embracing motion wholeheartedly. In Parmenides, the imperfect perception of reality as changing and moving ultimately gives way to a perception of its perfect stillness. In Empedocles, the eternal motion of the cosmic cycle gives way to motionlessness. However, for a human being actually to perceive the stillness of reality, a quality of supreme attentiveness, beyond anything mortals are capable of, must be cultivated. The Greeks, Parmenides and Empedocles included, called this divine attribute mêtis, a quality possessed by the gods and given by them, under special circumstances, to mortals who had earned their favor. The union of divine grace and conscious, human cooperation makes it possible for the divine quality of mêtis to be cultivated and eventually come into being—an outcome described by Kingsley as a “flowering of consciousness.”
Kingsley continues to work to return the tradition of Parmenides and Empedocles to consciousness, inside the academic world and also beyond. Plato
and Aristotle
, who defined the parameters of western philosophy without being fully aware of or sympathetic to the esoteric context in which Empedocles
and Parmenides
spoke, continue to exert an enormous influence both over our understandings of Parmenides and Empedocles as well as our notions of what philosophy is. Kingsley aims to make the lost awareness of Parmenides and Empedocles, as well as the reality of their tradition, available again.
to facilitate his work and make the mystical tradition of Parmenides and Empedocles available to the contemporary world.
A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World (Point Reyes, CA: Golden Sufi Center Publishing, 2010)
Reality (Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center, 2003)
In the Dark Places of Wisdom. Published in North America by The Golden Sufi Center (Inverness, CA, 1999) and in the UK by Duckworth (London, 2001)
Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic. Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Articles
“Empedocles for the New Millennium,” Ancient Philosophy, volume 22 (Pittsburgh, 2002), 333–413
“An Introduction to the Hermetica: The Asclepius and Ancient Esoteric Tradition,” in From Poimandres to Jacob Boehme, ed. R. van den Broek and C. van Heertum (Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2000), 18–40.
“Meetings with Magi: Iranian Themes among the Greeks, from Xanthus of Lydia to Plato’s Academy,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, volume 5 (London, 1995), 173–209
“From Pythagoras to the Turba philosophorum: Egypt and Pythagorean Tradition,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, volume 57 (London, 1994), 1–13
“Empedocles’ Sun,” Classical Quarterly, volume 44 (Oxford, 1994), 316–324
“Greeks, Shamans and Magi,” Studia Iranica, volume 23 (Paris, 1994), 187–198
“Empedocles and his Interpreters: The Four-Element Doxography,” Phronesis, volume 39 (Assen, Netherlands, 1994), 235–254
“Poimandres: The Etymology of the Name and the Origins of the Hermetica,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, volume 56 (London, 1993), 1–24. Reprinted, with additions and updates, in From Poimandres to Jacob Boehme, ed. R. van den Broek and C. van Heertum (Amsterdam, Netherlands: In de Pelikaan, 2000), 42–76
“The Greek Origin of the Sixth-Century Dating of Zoroaster,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, volume 53 (London, UK, 1990), 245–265
Pre-Socratic philosophy
Pre-Socratic philosophy is Greek philosophy before Socrates . In Classical antiquity, the Presocratic philosophers were called physiologoi...
philosophers Parmenides
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides...
and Empedocles
Empedocles
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...
and the world they lived in.
Education and Biography
Peter Kingsley attended Highgate SchoolHighgate School
-Notable members of staff and governing body:* John Ireton, brother of Henry Ireton, Cromwellian General* 1st Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, owner of Kenwood, noted for judgment finding contracts for slavery unenforceable in English law* T. S...
, in north London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, until 1971. He graduated with honours from the University of Lancaster in 1975, and went on to receive the degree of Master of Letters from the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
after study at King's College
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
; subsequently, he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
.
A former Fellow of the Warburg Institute
Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of the influence of classical antiquity on all aspects of European civilisation.-History:The Institute was founded by...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Kingsley has been made an honorary professor both at Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and at the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
. He has lectured widely in North America.
Kingsley has noted in public interviews that he is sometimes misunderstood as a scholar who gradually moved away from academic objectivity to a personal involvement with his subject matter. However, Kingsley himself has stated that he is, and always has been, a mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, and that his spiritual experience stands in the background of his entire career, not just his most recent work.
He currently resides in the greater Asheville, North Carolina area.
Major Themes
Kingsley’s work argues that the writings of the presocratic philosophers Parmenides and Empedocles, usually seen as rationalRationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
or scientific
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
enterprises, were in fact expressions of a wider Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
mystical tradition that helped give rise to western philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
and civilization
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
. This tradition, according to Kingsley, was a way of life leading to the direct experience of reality and the recognition of one’s divinity. Yet, as Kingsley stresses, this was no “otherworldly” mysticism: its chief figures were also lawgivers, diplomats, physicians, and even military men. The texts produced by this tradition are seamless fabrics of what later thought would distinguish as the separate areas of mysticism, science, healing, and art.
Parmenides, most famous as the “father of western logic” and traditionally viewed as a rationalist, was a priest of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
and iatromantis
Iatromantis
Iatromantis is a Greek word whose literal meaning is most simply rendered "physician-seer." Perhaps the most famous iatromantis was the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, best known as the founder of Western logic...
(lit. healer-prophet). Empedocles, who outlined an elaborate cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
that introduced the enormously influential idea of the four elements
Four elements
Four elements may refer to:* Classical elements, such as air, fire, earth and water* 4 Elements, an album by Chronic Future* Group 4 element, one of the chemical elements in Group 4 of the periodic table...
into western philosophy and science, was a mystic and a magician. Kingsley reads the poems of Parmenides and Empedocles as esoteric, initiatory texts designed to lead the reader to a direct experience of the oneness of reality and the realization of his or her own divinity. A significant implication of this reading is that western logic and science originally had a deeply spiritual purpose.
Kingsley’s reading of early Greek philosophy and, in particular, of Parmenides and Empedocles, is at odds with most of the established interpretations. However, Kingsley contends that later ancient philosophers such as Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, and Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
, among others, misinterpreted and distorted their predecessors; hence, conventional scholarship that uncritically accepts their misrepresentations of the presocratics is necessarily flawed. Kingsley’s procedure is to read presocratic texts in historical and geographical context, giving particular attention to the Southern Italian
Southern Italian
Southern Italian , or Napoletano-Calabrese, is a group of Italo-Dalmatian Romance dialects spoken in Southern Lazio, Southern Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Basilicata, Apulia, and Northern Calabria....
and Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
backgrounds of Parmenides and Empedocles. Additionally, he reads the poems of Parmenides and Empedocles as esoteric and mystical texts, a hermeneutical perspective that, according to Kingsley, is both indicated by the textual and historical evidence and also provides the only way to solve many problems of interpretation and text criticism. In his more recent work, Kingsley argues that esoteric texts designed to record or induce mystical experiences can never be understood from an “outsider’s perspective”; understanding must come from a reader’s lived experience—or not at all.
Parmenides and Empedocles
Kingsley presents ParmenidesParmenides
Parmenides of Elea was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides...
and Empedocles
Empedocles
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...
as representatives of a mystical tradition that helped give rise to western philosophy and civilization and that is still available to people today. Kingsley argues that this tradition is of profound importance and has something essential to offer, both inside the world of academic philosophy and beyond in the wider, contemporary West. Though Parmenides and Empedocles are often viewed as philosophical antagonists, Kingsley argues that beneath the superficial or apparent differences, the two men are profoundly united by the common essence of this one tradition, a connection that finds expression in their intimately connected understandings of reality, the body and the senses, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
, and divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
.
Parmenides and Empedocles are united by, among other things, a somewhat unorthodox mysticism with respect to the body and the senses. Empedocles’ cosmology, both born out of and directed towards mystical experience, deeply influences the peculiarities of the spiritual path as he offered it. Empedocles described a cosmic cycle consisting of the uniting and separation of the four divine “roots,” or elements, of earth
Earth (classical element)
Earth, home and origin of humanity, has often been worshipped in its own right with its own unique spiritual tradition.-European tradition:Earth is one of the four classical elements in ancient Greek philosophy and science. It was commonly associated with qualities of heaviness, matter and the...
, aithêr or air
Air (classical element)
Air is often seen as a universal power or pure substance. Its supposed fundamental importance to life can be seen in words such as aspire, inspire, perspire and spirit, all derived from the Latin spirare.-Greek and Roman tradition:...
, fire
Fire (classical element)
Fire has been an important part of all cultures and religions from pre-history to modern day and was vital to the development of civilization. It has been regarded in many different contexts throughout history, but especially as a metaphysical constant of the world.-Greek and Roman tradition:Fire...
, and water
Water (classical element)
Water is one of the elements in ancient Greek philosophy, in the Asian Indian system Panchamahabhuta, and in the Chinese cosmological and physiological system Wu Xing...
. The divine power of Love (at times simply called Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
), in Empedocles’ cosmology, brought the elements together into one, while the divine power of Strife separated them out from each other. For Empedocles, then, there is nothing in the cosmos
Cosmos
In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...
that is not divine. Thus, there is nothing to “leave behind” as one travels the spiritual path. His mysticism is not what one might anticipate—the ascetic strain of shutting out the senses or dissociation from the body. While many forms of mysticism reject and renounce the supposed crudity of matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
and the senses for something higher or loftier, Empedocles does not, teaching instead the conscious use of the senses themselves as a path to recognizing the divine in everything—including oneself. Similarly, Kingsley argues that the imagery and wording of the proem, or introductory part, of Parmenides’ poem record an initiate's descent to the underworld
Descent to the underworld
The descent to the underworld is a mytheme of comparative mythology found in a diverse number of religions from around the world, including Christianity. The hero or upper-world deity journeys to the underworld or to the land of the dead and returns, often with a quest-object or a loved one, or...
and indicate a mystical background connected to the ancient practice of healing and meditation known as incubation
Incubation (ritual)
Incubation is the religious practice of sleeping in a sacred area with the intention of experiencing a divinely inspired dream or cure. Incubation was practised by many ancient cultures...
.
More than just a medical technique, incubation was said to allow a human being to experience a fourth state of consciousness different from sleeping, dream
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
ing, or ordinary waking: a state that Kingsley describes as “consciousness itself” and likens to the turiya
Turiya
In Hindu philosophy, turiya is the experience of pure consciousness. It is the background that underlies and transcends the three common states of consciousness: the state of waking consciousness , the state of dreaming , and dreamless sleep .-Advaita concept:The first two states are not true...
or samadhi
Samadhi
Samadhi in Hinduism, Buddhism,Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools is a higher level of concentrated meditation, or dhyāna. In the yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali....
of the Indian yogic
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
traditions. Kingsley supports this reading of the proem with the archeological evidence from the excavations of Parmenides’ hometown of Velia
Velia
Velia is the Italian name of the ancient town of Elea located on the territory of the comune of Ascea, Salerno, Campania, Italy in a geographical sub-area named Cilento...
, or Elea, in Southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. This evidence, according to Kingsley, demonstrates that Parmenides was a practicing priest of Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, and would therefore have used incubatory techniques as a matter of course for healing, prophecy, and meditation. As Kingsley notes, this physical evidence from Velia merely conforms to and confirms the incubatory context already suggested by the proem itself. In Kingsley’s understanding of this mystical tradition, the descent to the underworld is deeply connected with the conscious experience of the body—it is, in reality, a conscious descent into the depths and darkness of the very sensation of the physical body. Thus, in contrast to mystical paths that hope to “transcend” the physical, embodied state, Parmenides and Empedocles both find the divine in and through the body and the senses.
The deep sympathy between the teachings of Parmenides and Empedocles is also found in the central, logical part of Parmenides’ poem, often referred to as “Fragment Eight” or “The Way of Truth.” As Kingsley notes, Parmenides’ logic aims at demonstrating that reality is changeless, whole, unborn and immortal, and one—a description strikingly similar to the ways in which absolute reality is described in many mystical traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta
Advaita Vedanta
Advaita Vedanta is considered to be the most influential and most dominant sub-school of the Vedānta school of Hindu philosophy. Other major sub-schools of Vedānta are Dvaita and ; while the minor ones include Suddhadvaita, Dvaitadvaita and Achintya Bhedabheda...
, Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
, and Dzogchen
Dzogchen
According to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, Dzogchen is the natural, primordial state or natural condition of the mind, and a body of teachings and meditation practices aimed at realizing that condition. Dzogchen, or "Great Perfection", is a central teaching of the Nyingma school also practiced by...
. That this is no mere material
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
or metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
is indicated by the initiatory motifs of the proem; the setting and hymnal
Hymnal
Hymnal or hymnary or hymnbook is a collection of hymns, i.e. religious songs, usually in the form of a book. The earliest hand-written hymnals are known since Middle Ages in the context of European Christianity...
language of Fragment Eight; the unnamed goddess as the speaker of these words; and the figure of the historical Parmenides as priest of Apollo. Kingsley reads Parmenides as saying that this “ultimate reality” is not on some supercelestial plane, but rather is very simply the reality of the world all around us. We live in an unborn and deathless world of oneness, wholeness, and changelessness—but we are unable to recognize it because mortal perception itself is dualistic. Thus, as in Empedocles, everything in Parmenides’ cosmos is divine—and, importantly, the divine is not “somewhere else,” but rather, right here and now.
Language, too, plays a crucial role in the teachings of Parmenides and Empedocles, and there are deep affinities here as well. Parmenides’ nameless goddess consistently mimics those mortal habits of duality responsible for our imperfect perception of reality in her elenchos, or spoken demonstration, caricaturing the “twin-headed” mortals to whom she is speaking, using divine logic to reveal unity. Thus, the “truth” of Fragment Eight is distinctly paradoxical and reflects the apparent duality and paradox of undivided reality. The goddess’ cunning use of language, humor, and paradox to undermine what she calls “mortal opinion” and establish reality indicates the fundamental importance of the word in Parmenides’ teaching. When Empedocles continues the line in his poetry, the same profound importance accorded to the word in Parmenides is very much in evidence. Empedocles tells his disciple that his words are actually living things
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
with consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
and will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
. His words are esoteric seeds that must be planted in the earth of the body and tended with good will, purity, and attention—since they possess the power, if treated properly, to germinate and grow into divine awareness. Empedocles’ poetry contains what is needed for this organic process to take place.
Parmenides
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides...
and Empedocles
Empedocles
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...
are also united by a shared understanding of death and, in particular, its role in the mystical path. While all readings of Empedocles recognize that his cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
involves the four roots of earth, air or aithêr, fire, and water, united by Love and separated by Strife, Kingsley differs radically from most readers of Empedocles, ancient and modern, with respect to the ordering and significance of the cycle. He argues that most readings of Empedocles are grossly incorrect and essentially backwards, noting that Empedocles begins each cycle with the elements in a state of separation, followed by a blending under the influence of Love, then finally a return to the original state of separation under Strife. This, however, is not some kind of cosmic pessimism, unless one misunderstands what Empedocles is really saying.
According to Kingsley, if one follows Empedocles’ words carefully, one sees that the elements, while separate, exist in a state of immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
and purity. When they are brought together by Love or Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
they are essentially seduced into incarnate, mortal existence and mixture—and thus an existence foreign to their true natures of immortality and purity. Consequently, when they are separated again by Strife, this is not cause for lament: it is the liberation of the elements from the unnatural and forced condition brought about by Love and a return to immortality and purity. This reading of Empedocles is highly suggestive of similar Orphic and Pythagorean
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...
views of incarnation
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
, divinization
Divinization
Divinization or deification is the "making divine", the "deification" of an earthly entity, individual, group, or activity.In Christian theology, divinization is the transforming effect of divine grace....
, and death. Parmenides, in turn, travels to the depths of the underworld
Greek underworld
The Greek underworld was made up of various realms believed to lie beneath the earth or at its farthest reaches.This includes:* The great pit of Tartarus, originally the exclusive prison of the old Titan gods, it later came to be the dungeon home of damned souls.* The land of the dead ruled by the...
—the world of death—and meets a goddess whom Kingsley identifies as Persephone
Persephone
In Greek mythology, Persephone , also called Kore , is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest-goddess Demeter, and queen of the underworld; she was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the underworld....
, the queen of the dead. It is only by making this journey that Parmenides is able to learn the truth about reality and mortal opinion
Doxa
Doxa is a Greek word meaning common belief or popular opinion, from which are derived the modern terms of orthodoxy and heterodoxy.Used by the Greek rhetoricians as a tool for the formation of argument by using common opinions, the doxa was often manipulated by sophists to persuade the people,...
and return to the world of the living with his prophetic message. Thus, both Empedocles and Parmenides, like other mystics, find wisdom, healing, and eternal life in what most people suppose to be the dark and grim reality of death. As Kingsley puts it, the essential requirement for traveling this spiritual path is that, “You have to die before you die.”
Finally, both Parmenides and Empedocles stress the necessity of reaching divine stillness by embracing motion wholeheartedly. In Parmenides, the imperfect perception of reality as changing and moving ultimately gives way to a perception of its perfect stillness. In Empedocles, the eternal motion of the cosmic cycle gives way to motionlessness. However, for a human being actually to perceive the stillness of reality, a quality of supreme attentiveness, beyond anything mortals are capable of, must be cultivated. The Greeks, Parmenides and Empedocles included, called this divine attribute mêtis, a quality possessed by the gods and given by them, under special circumstances, to mortals who had earned their favor. The union of divine grace and conscious, human cooperation makes it possible for the divine quality of mêtis to be cultivated and eventually come into being—an outcome described by Kingsley as a “flowering of consciousness.”
Kingsley continues to work to return the tradition of Parmenides and Empedocles to consciousness, inside the academic world and also beyond. Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
and Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, who defined the parameters of western philosophy without being fully aware of or sympathetic to the esoteric context in which Empedocles
Empedocles
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...
and Parmenides
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides...
spoke, continue to exert an enormous influence both over our understandings of Parmenides and Empedocles as well as our notions of what philosophy is. Kingsley aims to make the lost awareness of Parmenides and Empedocles, as well as the reality of their tradition, available again.
Non-profit Organization
In 2006, Kingsley founded a 501(c)(3) non-profit organizationNon-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
to facilitate his work and make the mystical tradition of Parmenides and Empedocles available to the contemporary world.
Select bibliography
BooksA Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World (Point Reyes, CA: Golden Sufi Center Publishing, 2010)
Reality (Inverness, CA: The Golden Sufi Center, 2003)
In the Dark Places of Wisdom. Published in North America by The Golden Sufi Center (Inverness, CA, 1999) and in the UK by Duckworth (London, 2001)
Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic. Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Articles
“Empedocles for the New Millennium,” Ancient Philosophy, volume 22 (Pittsburgh, 2002), 333–413
“An Introduction to the Hermetica: The Asclepius and Ancient Esoteric Tradition,” in From Poimandres to Jacob Boehme, ed. R. van den Broek and C. van Heertum (Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2000), 18–40.
“Meetings with Magi: Iranian Themes among the Greeks, from Xanthus of Lydia to Plato’s Academy,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, volume 5 (London, 1995), 173–209
“From Pythagoras to the Turba philosophorum: Egypt and Pythagorean Tradition,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, volume 57 (London, 1994), 1–13
“Empedocles’ Sun,” Classical Quarterly, volume 44 (Oxford, 1994), 316–324
“Greeks, Shamans and Magi,” Studia Iranica, volume 23 (Paris, 1994), 187–198
“Empedocles and his Interpreters: The Four-Element Doxography,” Phronesis, volume 39 (Assen, Netherlands, 1994), 235–254
“Poimandres: The Etymology of the Name and the Origins of the Hermetica,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, volume 56 (London, 1993), 1–24. Reprinted, with additions and updates, in From Poimandres to Jacob Boehme, ed. R. van den Broek and C. van Heertum (Amsterdam, Netherlands: In de Pelikaan, 2000), 42–76
“The Greek Origin of the Sixth-Century Dating of Zoroaster,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, volume 53 (London, UK, 1990), 245–265