“The world is not as it is seen by human mind; all is immortal and conscious. There is nothing but consciousness.”
—Peter Kingsley
The ancient mysteries can be used to reevaluate the entire basis of the reality that shapes contemporary western consciousness. For Peter Kingsley, the mystical teachings of the ancient thinkers hold the keys to participating in the twentieth-century world, that go beyond materialism.
Parmenides calls our limited awareness the state of experienced habit. The habit is not our behavior, but rather what Kant describes in his Critic of Pure Reason, that our minds are bound to time and space. Parmenides is describing the metaphysics of Kant and as well, the eastern philosophies. Parmenides saw rationality as the obstacle to attaining higher consciousness. He expressed his views in an extensive poem that used paradox to undermine the utility of rationality for understanding the true nature of reality. Parmenides held that Logos is a connecting thread emergent to the transcendent, apprehending the Whole.
Unfortunately, the poem has been reconstructed to convey the exact opposite assertion. The Stoics, and others, misconstrued Parmenides’ Logos, turning the construct into logic and reason. The heresy put forward by Plato and Aristotle is that higher consciousness is obtained via rationality whereas the true teachings of Parmenides is the exact opposite. This process resulted in a new cult, the cult of reason, coming to define ultimate reality as knowable only through reason.
Kingsley feels that Western philosophy is wedded to this programmatic de-mystification of the early Greek thinkers. He details how the deep mysteries of the ancient world are the fundamental basis of Parmenides, Empedocles, and Pythagoras, not the logical reasoning that has been expounded. In all of Plato, exclusive of the Timaeus and some parts of the Republic, there is a negation of any mystical aspect to the philosophy of Parmenides. Curiously, Plato minimizes the mystical foundation of the Pythagoreans, even though Plato spent time in Syracuse at the time of the mystery cults. Beginning with Plato there was a transformation of the pre-Socratic and the Eleatic schools away from being mysteries and into logic and analysis, becoming the basis of western philosophy. Plato initiated this transformation and Aristotle institutionalized it.
Resources
Reality, by Peter Kingsley
Kingsley in his book Reality analyzes the writings of Empedocles. For Peter Kingsley, Empedocles is a Magician. Contemporary philosophy wishes to view him as a logician. This tendency of rationalists to reduce or eliminate the mystical in the philosophers can be seen in the reduction of Newton and Leibnitz as well; they were not mathematicians first, but metaphysicians.
In the Dark Places, by Peter Kingsley
In the Dark Places is a slightly less academically-detailed version of the essential theme Kingsley developed in Reality.
Reality and In the Dark Places of Wisdom are based on Peter Kingsley’s research into the early Greek thinkers. Kingsley challenges the western philosophical tradition that has misconstrued the philosophy of Parmenides. In the 6th century BCE, Parmenides wrote a poem that has been taken as an exemplar of logic; however, Kingsley asserts this is erroneous. Rather, the poem is an invitation to the reader to participate in the transformation of the ancient mysteries.
A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World, by Peter Kingsley
This adventure story is an allegory to help us understand the metaphysics of Parmenides. Kingsley, in A Story Waiting to Pierce You, narrates the adventure of a youthful traveler, Abaris, who arrives in Greece from the East. He comes from the land of the Avars, bringing the wisdom put forth by Parmenides and the Greek Mystery Cults.
Everything: The Recording of an Extraordinary Event, by Peter Kingsley
For an experience of Kingsley’s mysticism, he has prepared a recording of his conducting a mystical journey. “Everything” is an 8-CD set Kingsley has produced that faithfully records a three-day workshop on experiencing the inner mysticism he advocates as a vehicle for Awakening. Much of the experience is conveyed throughout the mesmerizing way that Kingsley describes the journey inward. This audio set may not be appropriate or of optimal value for individuals with little or no experience in meditation or guided imagery. However, for the truly motivated to experience the mysticism of Peter Kingsley, this is a profoundly effective recording set. This audio set contains content describing the metaphysics of the inward journey; however, this is not an intellectual audio set. This is a truly experiential adventure into an ancient mystical point of entry into Awakening.