Give Us an Example of God!

Quote from Twentier

Demetrios of Lakon wrote a book entitled On the Form of the Gods (is that right?)

Yes, but of course just a little bit remains.

Quote from Twentier

Given that a potentially-psychedelic brew was ingested at the climax of a mystery cult, and it is written that he"is found to have taken part in all the traditional festivals and sacrifices. […] he says that he shared in all the festivals […] and that while he was joining in celebrating the festival of the Choes [at Anthesteria] and the urban mysteries [Attic Dionysia] | and the other festivals at a meagre dinner..." it would might been odd for him not to ingest kykeon.

If something like kykeon was ingested regularly, and kykeon can contain ergot, or potentially another psychoactive agent, then ... well, indeed, "knowledge of the gods" was "evident".

I agree. As per Wikipedia, it seems quite certain that Kykeon contained ergot, which might make Epicurus' idea of the gods and the intermundia much more conceptual-spiritual (for lack of a better word) than physical – which does not make them any less real, because we can sense them…?

For those wondering: Ergot is a fungus growing on cereal grains, which produces a wide range of bio-active chemicals such as ergometrine (used as a drug after childbirth, still an essential in many parts of the world), but most notably for our discussion here would be ergine, which is LSD minus the diethyl group, which in turn is like magic mushrooms' psilocybin plus a mild amphetamine, which I'd guess to be very vaguely comparable to being stoned-out-of-one's-mind on cannabis while also having ingested enough caffeine to offset the tiredness/numbness/lethargy/… that would induce. (Oh my, the weird knowledge my sponge-and-sieve brain decides to remember! *shrug*)

Eh... My foray into psychedelics was pretty disasterous and almost entirely led to my adoption of Naturalism and Epicureanism. I had the psychedelic ideology in the back of my mind since I was a teenager as something I wanted to pursue someday. Eventually, I tried "mere" marijuana for a very short period of about 2 weeks. Spent the next year in and out of psyche wards because of it and the next 8 years in and out of pyschosis, attempting to piece the mind back together again. Needless to say that whole tree I was barking up has been completely uprooted and turned to kindling in my mind and now makes a pleasant, but roaring fire to which I throw all manner of superstition, magickal thinking and transcendent ideations and impulses onto. Still though I am not opposed to people doing them or opposed to people who do them, I just view their experiences and insights concerning it with very little value since adopting Epicurean Hedonism. It is complete dumb luck that I happened upon the one Philosophy that would singularly be the antidote to my ills...

My experiences with insanity and the residual foul memories and conceptions, generally has me taking the position that if "the supernatural" however one wishes to concieve of it were real, I would still regard it as extremely low value compared to just normal, naturalistic world as I perceive it. Epicurus' animal Gods that carry on formal friendships, self-sustaining activity and all the rest, is just way more relatable and frankly healthier way to view "ideal" beings that we allegedly all for better or worse have notions of in our minds. The theology redeems the whole idea of Gods for me.

Quote from Twentier

she very clearly witnessed the visual features of two, very important people from her past, who had both died under tragic circumstances. They both looked like they were at their prime (ageless) and they were perfectly blissful (happy), figures that, as she explained, ultimately provided her with comfort.

There are no outside persons inside my mind like that, so I would not expect to at some point have an experience of this kind. For me, death was different every time:

It was terror and fright.

It was despair and frantic effort.

It was abandonment and sadness.

It was erratic chaos and powerlessness.

It was relief and release in death by a thousand cuts.

Quote from Twentier

While on a soup of opiates, going through organ-failure

I am tempted to say her medication and condition influence her state of mind and allowed her to paint a more pleasant picture. For example, many opiates are serotonergic, which makes them pleasant and soothing, even beyond their specific opioid effects. She was probably cared for externally, so her fight was internal. That isn't always the case.

For example, when I ended up in hypothermia as a teenager, I had been injured and left for dead in difficult terrain. I knew where I was, so I knew what I had to do: 1. reach a path around six hours below my position, 2. three hour hike to nearest settlement. I soon resigned from life – paused, cried, made my peace; quickly, no daylight to waste! – and turned off all complex thought, so as to function like an autopilot in highway hypnosis, as if in trance. I remained in this thoughtless, un-aware, mindless state until I had reached the path and eventually lost consciousness while dragging myself towards the settlement. By chance, I was found, woken up – and immediately resumed on my 2nd mission objective: reach the settlement. The lady who had found me wanted me to stay put. I thought "Settlement!" and brushed her off. She wanted me to conserve my strength. "Settlement!", one step. She wanted me to stay in place until mountain rescue arrives. "Settlement!", another step. She said this and that, and I thought "Settlement! Settlement!", and just kept executing my task. The lady didn't make sense. She wasn't part of the plan. To me, she was just an odd and oddly persistent obstacle. If I hadn't been found, I'd simply have slipped away while asleep. If so, then what's my point with this story?

Did I dream, maybe? I don't remember – but I'm quite certain that my dream would have been about walking or crawling, about reaching my goal, about survival. Just like the two helpers which appeared for your wife were there to help her reach her goal. You see, to survive any given situation, we must survive it two-fold: as a body, and as a person. She could not do anything much for her body. It was being cared for. She had to focus on her survival as a person (and indirectly help her body in doing that). For a person to survive, it needs a secure attachment (the experience of a bond with other people), needs their attention/attunement/presence/connection as a person (instead of just the existence of a warm body in proximity; classic example here is the Still Face Experiment, less well-known is that the same thing happens with slightly delayed video feeds), and for enough space in that connection for any feelings; otherwise, defence mechanisms are activated to self-regulate, instead of regulating oneself through interaction with another; these are compartmentalisation, flattening of affect, et cetera. However, most defences are expensive cognitively (which wastes precious biochemical energy), and they keep the body in a higher state of arousal (in the sense of alert-ness/ready-ness) for a longer time. To avoid all that, it makes sense to have happy, friendly helpers guide the way, soothe the mind, and allow it to effectively regulate the autonomous nervous system, allow it to effectively send whichever signals the body needs to survive.

I survived as a person, because I wasn't even present as one. I came-to in a medical facility, even though I was awake the whole time. Shutting off conscious awareness is a dissociative defence, helps to conserve energy and allows to keep the physical state of high arousal going for however long is needed, which made sense in my example. I'd say that doesn't make one or the other more or less of a near-death experience. It just makes them different experiences.

And with that little opening speech, I circle back to the gods: I don't think near-death experiences are very consistent, and I think they very much depend on who you ask and what they've experienced: pharmaceuticals, social context, age (especially child vs teenager/adult), type of survival situation, cultural backdrop. With the experiences so different, can we really conceive of them as to "pertaining to gods"? Shouldn't we rather think of them as nature's hopefully-not-last gift to us? Or should we rather redefine "god" in terms of what you've said below, regarding altered-state-of-mind experiences, more along the lines of "plant teachers", along the lines of shamanic and faith traditions which managed to continue their use of "divine rituals" of this type – which really is (or rather: was) quite omnipresent globally for most of humanity's existence

Quote from Twentier

I had way too much nitrous oxide before/during a procedure, and I was absolutely sure I was going to permanently lose consciousness. Nonetheless, the experience was calming: life was what it was, what's left is what it is ... might as well smile. This is common with the ego death.

I hear you, but I'd like to note that – In my humble opinion – the calm "might as well smile" experience would more likely have been due to the pharmacology of nitrous oxide, than be secondary to the experience of ego death. Would you clarify which way you meant it?

Quote from Twentier

To spontaneously witness the form of a 20-something friend during "dream-states" at various points in one's life would have been much more significant to a non-"photo-centric" world.

I agree.

Quote from Twentier

2. I live in a prohibitionary era with regards to psychedelics. […] The point is, the average ancient Greek was not exposed to "Reefer Madness" and "Just Say 'No'" and would have seen been more likely to associate religion with the state of divine intoxication and the rituals used to induce it.

I agree.

PS: Regarding the two-foldedness of survival, If your body survives, but you as a person don't, your body will exist, but have “lost its mind”, one way or another; the simplest example is stupor, a "lights on but nobody home" type situation in which the body is physically fine and awake, but there's no activity relating to the outside world. The human just sits and stares. Countless other ways are possible, but this is Epicurean Friends, not Trauma Therapy dot com – just thought I should clarify that I meant it literal and not in some esoteric woo-woo type way

Quote from Twentier

Eh, I don't know. I really want to dream about Zeus once and put an end to it.

Eikadistes you may like this...and it looks like the main explanation is a podcast recording...I only listened to the first ten minutes, but it seems like it may have some good stuff!

Hypnos & the Poppy: Ancient Greek Dream Incubation — Mira Karakitsou

In this episode, we’ll be meeting the Greek gods of Night, Sleep, and Dreams — Nyx, Hypnos, the Oneiroi, Mnemosyne, and more. We’ll explore dream rituals in…

atemplewild.com

Quote from Twentier

(3) Hermarkhos, Demetrios, Philodemos, and Lucretius making indications that the gods breathe and converse is not a preconception, but inductive reasoning that happens to be coherent with the preconception, and (4) the actual gods don't really exist except as concepts in our minds.

I think Point 3 is correct and applies to Epicurus as well. Preconceptions are never the same as inductive reasoning, and I would say "statements of fact" are always better termed "conceptions," as "statements of fact" are never the same as preconceptions. "Opinions" is another good word, as Epicurus apparently said (Diogenes Laertius?) that opinions can be true or false, but unfortunately today the word "opinion" is firmly understood to imply that the opinion is "not true," so in most cases clarity will require some other word.

As to point 4 I would say the problem is the meaning of the term "the actual gods." If someone insists that the term "actual gods" must include Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Thor, or whoever, then yes I would say the statement "actual gods do not exist except as concepts in our mind" is true, because *those gods* do not exist as independently real beings with bodies and locations and so forth.

However the term "actual gods" by no means requires accepting that Yahweh and the rest are included within that term. Therefore I would submit the statement "the actual gods don't really exist except as concepts in our minds" as that statement would be made in common discussion and understood by 99% of people today would be seen in Epicurean terminology as false.

I would say (as I think you did later in the post) that if Epicurus were here today he would say something like the following, which is what I understand the texts to mean when read fairly. Epicurus would say "divinity" or "god" is a term that humans apply to living beings that meet a certain criteria of total blessedness and total deathlessness, and that this term is applicable to and appropriate to describe beings which our physics and understanding of nature tell us do actually exist in the universe.

The problem always comes when someone makes specific assertions about some personality like Yahweh or Zeus or any of the rest actually existing. It's also a problem to make general assertions about the class of gods that goes beyond deathlessness and blessedness, as none of those assertions have ever proven to be reliable and reproducible and worthy of belief.

Thus it appears that the Epicureans speculated about "quasi-bodies" and "quasi-blood" to acknowledge that we can reasonably believe that the class of "gods" have certain qualities that allow them to exist in the universe, but that we do not have the ability to specify the details of those qualities given our lack of information from our vantage point here on Earth.

Quote from Bryan

Yes, but of course just a little bit remains.

This is excellent work Bryan! I presume this is yours? Can we set up a "Demetrius Lacon" Thread or subforum to include this and the links to papyri from which you are working?

I am thinking a subforum in this section:

Ancient Epicurean Texts (300 BC to 300 AD)

Quote from Root304

It is complete dumb luck that I happened upon the one Philosophy that would singularly be the antidote to my ills...

I'm very glad you did have that complete dumb luck the "one joint too many made me psychotic" theme is part of the lives of two former acquaintances, so I can begin to imagine what it must have been like, how much effort it must have taken, and am happy that you made it back onto more solid ground. Well done!

Quote from Twentier

a general way of saying "religion is social construct that evolved from basic human behaviors"

(Just to keep things clear: Religion is just a big cult, and a cult is just a predatory power structure which abuses vulnerable individuals by satisfying their need for attachment and care, while instilling fears in them, and causing them to raise their kids with the same empty, vulnerable hearts such that they, too, will fall prey to the same power structure and it can franchise. Kind of like many modern people who suffer from the limitless (vain & empty) desire for status will over-attached to a brand name to be a temporary band aid to their deeper psychological need to be seen and cared for as a person… -- Being religious is more specific than simply just having faith in something supernatural.)

At the link I posted above (in post 29) I found a transcript further down that page, and found this:

Quote

For the Greeks, dreams were not imagined stories or even narratives, they were actually real visitations, the gods or the Oneiroi appearing to them as a vision. So I want to read you a passage from the book An Ancient Dream Manual by Peter Thonemann. I think he does a really perfect job of explaining how the Greeks understood dreams. He says,

“Greek and Roman authors do not speak of ‘having a dream’ or ‘dreaming that x happened’, but rather of ‘seeing a dream’, where the dream is objectified or personified as a thing or person that appears to the dreamer in his or her sleep. The archetypal Greek or Roman dream is therefore not an experience…but a kind of apparition.”

OK, but that’s not to say that what appears in the dream is necessarily literal for the dreamer.

As Thonemann continues, “In their dreams [they] ‘see’ a sequence of discrete and isolated dream-elements (an eagle, a flock of sheep, a whale), each of which is then individually decoded as a symbolic representation of a person or thing in their waking world.”

Perhaps there were those who had a feeling that dreams of gods were part of reality, vs. those who saw dreams as only symbolic.

Quote from Twentier

Similarly, Epicurus advises against romantic exploits, but stops short of explicitly prohibiting them, so long as they do not cause turmoil.

I think the last phrase there should be "does not cause more pain than pleasure" which would be the general way the analysis applies to all topics. Because although I know that not everyone interprets PD10 this way, I think it is reasonably interpreted to mean that no activity can ever be "blanketly" ruled out because there is no fate and thus no absolute certainty as to result. It seems to me its always a problem to state any rule of conduct in terms of an absolute rule, as that would override the physics and the fact that nature gives us only pleasure and pain as guides.

Quote from Twentier

I wonder, like sex and politics if Epicurus would allow for a non-theistic rejection of the traditional gods if one is so inclined by their natural disposition?

Therefore (after my first comment) I would say that he would "allow" the possibility of such a position, if indeed in a particular case it does lead to a successful result, but he'd "warn against it" as going against general human experience.

Quote from Twentier

How do I know that "the gods" in "dreams" are more real than centaurs and cyclops?

That's a good approach and I bet it has several ways of responding. Both gods and centaurs are "real" from the perspective of affecting us, but gods are "more real" than centaurs if "real" is thought of as meaning that the thing has likely an ongoing physical existence capable of generating its own images on a regular basis. Here are two starting points that will need revision:

- Our observations of the physical universe tells us that "gods" are likely and possible, but that centaurs are not. In the case of gods we are talking about a wide class that could have very many forms, so long as those forms are consistent with blessedness and imperishability. In the case of "centaurs" that's an assertion of a very specific physical formation that conflicts with our long experience with both humans and horses.

- "Gods" as a class are very frequently the topic of our interest (receipt of images), but "centaurs" are very infrequently so. Repeatability / regularity is a major aspect of something being "real." Anything with an independent existence will regularly generate images of their own. Centaurs are combinations of images of men and horses which happen much less frequently.

I would be interested in Bryan 's thoughts on this. But the issue turns on the overriding question of the meaning of "real" and how we consider anything to be real.

Quote from Twentier

Let's use the example of "demons" (as a class).

Well, "demons as a class" already sounds like a conceptual construct to me. Blessedness (pleasure) and Imperishability (life) seem to me things that are much more on a level of "sensation." "Gods" would be the conceptual embodiment of those characteristics (blessedness and life/imperishability) in perfected form. "Demons" i guess could be considered conceptual construction like "gods," but I don't think once you start talking about "demons" you are still talking about something that can be a true opinion generated by a prolepsis, just like the existence of centaurs would not be a true opinion, even though they can be generated by "images."

Quote from Twentier

I have experienced a prolepsis of a being "with a permanent lack of pleasure" and I assign to that prolepsis the word "demon", as a class of perfectly-pleasureless beings?

So I think I would first have to unpack that sentence in the same way. "Prolepsis" seems to me to be focusing on "arrangements" but to assign to a particular arrangement a label "a living person who permanently lacks pleasure" probably goes into "false opinion."

Once again I think these are great questions, and I am sure that my answers can be improved. I think these questions do have good answers, I am just not at all sure mine so far are the best that can be given.

In addition I think we still have a lot more to clarify about what "a prolepsis" is. When we say "a prolepsis of ______" something , that something is coming out in our description as a conception, and I don't think that is right.

Prolepsis should lead to formation of concepts but not be concepts themselves, just like eyes never tell us what a thing is, but only give us raw data about color and brightness and sharpness and the like. Possibly even the eyes don't tell us "boundaries" either, of where one "thing" stops and another starts. Maybe "thing" is itself an opinion of the mind after our mind assembles the data from the senses.

On the nature of "things" might itself have multiple meanings.