Posts by Kalosyni

I just found this article: "ΓΕΝΕΣΙΑ. A Forgotten Festival of the Dead" - about Genesia:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/636925

On a less serious note...

Maybe we should proclaim October 31st as "Dress up like an ancient Greek or Roman" day!

From Wikipedia:

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Care of the dead and the loving duty toward one's ancestors (pietas) were fundamental aspects of ancient Roman culture.^[52] A clear manifestation of this is Roman Republican era portrait busts which may have originated in the practice of making death masks of ancestors which were displayed in the home and during funerary rites and on the anniversary of the ancestor's death.

And further down:

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Ancient Rome

edit

Detail from an early second-century Roman sarcophagus depicting the death of Meleager

See also: Roman funerals and burial

The Romans, like many Mediterranean societies, regarded the bodies of the dead as polluting.^[66] During Rome's Classical period, the body was most often cremated, and the ashes placed in a tomb outside the city walls. Much of the month of February was devoted to purifications, propitiation, and veneration of the dead, especially at the nine-day festival of the Parentalia during which a family honored its ancestors. The family visited the cemetery and shared cake and wine, both in the form of offerings to the dead and as a meal among themselves. The Parentalia drew to a close on February 21 with the more somber Feralia, a public festival of sacrifices and offerings to the Manes, the potentially malevolent spirits of the dead who required propitiation.^[67] One of the most common inscriptional phrases on Latin epitaphs is Dis Manibus, abbreviated D.M, "for the Manes gods", which appears even on some Christian tombstones. The Caristia on February 22 was a celebration of the family line as it continued into the present.^[68]

A noble Roman family displayed ancestral images (imagines) in the tablinum of their home (domus). Some sources indicate these portraits were busts, while others suggest that funeral masks were also displayed. The masks, probably modeled of wax from the face of the deceased, were part of the funeral procession when an elite Roman died. Professional mourners wore the masks and regalia of the dead person's ancestors as the body was carried from the home, through the streets, and to its final resting place.^[69]

You can read about various cultures and veneration of the dead at this wikipedia entry. (It doesn't say anything about ancient Greece).

Veneration of the dead - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My guess is that Epicurus would participated only because it was so widely practiced and seemed necessary to those who were not Epicureans.

Since we don't have an American annual ritual of ancestor veneration, then I think it would feel awkwar to try to start doing that, especially if as Epicureans we don't believe that a spirit survives death.

Thank you wbernys for your RSVP! We will send out the link the day before the meeting by private conversation. Looking forward to meeting you!

Welcome to the forum AthenianGarden

Specially inviting: ranc1  Randall Moose  SillyApe  ScottW  warjuning  Pimagus  chump  MarkJW  wbernys  nothelpfuldoug  epicurista  yonder  Zarathustra  Hubblefanboy  luketn9

Please RSVP either here if you are Level 02, or RSVP in your Welcome Thread if you are Level 01.

I am currently thinking about how every person both understands (comprehends) and implements, Epicurean philosophy uniquely. Some people put most of their focus onto the ethics, and others really prefer contemplating "the nature of things".

We each understand the telos uniquely and we each have our own reasons for why we continue to implement the philosophy in our own lives. Our choices and avoidances are also unique to our given situations.

I've been thinking about why that is, and have been thinking about how individual temperaments and individual formative childhood experiences influence how we make sense of Epicurean philosophy, and the kinds of evaluations we each make regarding pleasure, pain, and formulation of guessing future outcomes and consequences when we make choices.

I made this chart as a way to think about how we individually move through choices. Of course this uses a rather primitive understanding of temperament (based on the four humors). In modern times we have the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator.

So here on the forum, the different ways of interpreting the Epicurean philosophy arise out of individual differences in temperaments.

With an in-person group we would have quite a task of determining what activities to do as a group, and would likely have to split up into smaller groups... for example: those that are seeking quiet and therapeutic aspects, and those that are seeking ambitious goals of spreading the words of Epicurus.

I've been pondering in my mind what would be the most succinct way to state the Epicurean canon, and I see this thread with the title: "Making Epicurean Canonics Understandable" which seems like a good place to post (but I have not read the posts here yet, as I wanted to make my statement while it was still fresh in my mind.)

So here it goes:

1. What is "true and false" is known through the physical senses

2. What is "good and bad" is known by feelings of pleasure or pain

3. What is "right or wrong" is known through the mental anticipations

I don't have any particular text source for these statements in mind, and they may be wrong especially the third one. But I am hoping that people can correct me and hopefully make equally short statements that summarize the canon, such that the mind can comprehend them easily and they can be remembered easily.

-- Cassius  Don  Joshua  Bryan  Eikadistes (and anyone else).

Coming up on November 3rd...we are especially inviting our new forum members, and any forum members who haven't previously attended a Zoom meeting, to a "Meet and Greet" where there will be time to meet fellow forum members and to ask questions about the forum and Epicurean philosophy.

Cassius will be on hand to facilitate the meeting. Established members are also invited to come and meet new members!

We hold this meeting on an "as needed basis," so we ask that all members please RSVP. The meeting will only be held if at least one new member indicates they are available.

Level 02 and 03: please RSVP here in this thread.

Level 01 members: please post in your Welcome thread that you would like to attend or message Cassius using the "conversations" feature.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Birthday Joshua! Wishing you everything cozy and nice for your birthday!

Excerpt adapted from Torquatus section:

"...the earliest meetings and associations and tendencies towards the establishment of familiarity do arise on account of pleasure, yet when experience has gradually produced intimacy, then affection ripens to such a degree...that...friends are loved in themselves and for their own sake."

-- and for the sense of mental pleasure that arises when thinking of the friend.

Quote from DaveT

You might be amazed at the absolute craziness of the tourism there from the beginning of September all the way through October every year. They claim over a million people visit Salem, and Halloween is the epitome of their tourism season.

I had no idea that this was happening, and this is definitely an indicator of the current cultural "zietgeist" (lol...zietgeist).

Quote from Adrastus

I am pretty 'bah, humbug' about Halloween as it is celebrated around here and find it deeply unpleasant. I think it trains for painful anticipations and painful attitudes towards death. There is no exchange of wisdom about death or the ancestors. There is no learning about the nature of death, but showing off unrealistic and grotesque forms...

...

Culturally it's just devolving into an extension of the increasingly distubing and pornographic horror and survival media that is getting created these days that has basically dropped the pretense of being about entertainment, and truly we become the stories we keep telling.

It seems pretty unnatural to "glorify" decay and ugliness (ugly witches, goblins, monsters, and bloodied faces/bodies) and it seems that on some level this is an expression of anger and hopelessness.

It is like an expression of a "thanatos drive," or a kind of death instinct (Sigmund Freud's theory of a fundamental human drive toward death and destruction) which stands in opposition to the life instinct of Eros (that which drives creation and survival).

To counter-act this, in Epicurean philosophy we have a Principal Doctrines/Vatican Sayings which point toward using cognitive re-appraisal, and a good example is Vatican Saying 35.

This wikipedia article:

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There is varied experimental evidence that illustrates the properties of appraisal theories. A meta analysis found that 75% of studies showed statistically significant relationships between appraisal and emotions.^[8] This encapsulates the core of appraisal theories that interpretations of experiences is what gives rise to emotions.

Source

But will probably need to start a new thread on this topic. Since having a certain level of external goods is also necessary for happiness (not just internal focus).

Happy Birthday Rolf!

Happy Twentieth Everyone!

Just one idea for an alternative to Halloween...

...dress up as a blissful and immortal being...and eat cake and ice-cream!

I just found this video, by Gregory Sadler, "Mortality of Mind and Spirit" gives a good introductory overview:

Looks like he has done a whole series on Lucretius.

I'll add this quote by Cassius which was posted over in another thread:

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My own view of employing the psychological hedonism argument in this context is that while there is a lot of merit depending on how it is presented (as Twain does), I don't find it particularly useful on the deeper and more important point of decided what the word "pleasure' really should be held to mean. it's one thing to say that every in truth acts for what they think will bring them the best result, but how that result correlates to "pleasure" is really the issue, and saying that "everyone does it" doesn't really help with that, at least from my point of view. All the other lemmings may be jumping off the cliff, but observing that everyone is doing it doesn't really help me decide that I should follow that path myself.

But I see the point being, just because everyone else is doing something doesn't mean that I should choose to do something.

fyi ... I found this old thread:

Post

Epicurean Philosophy vs. Objectivism (Ayn Rand)

At the moment there is no subforum devoted to this, so here's a thread with a very pointed starting point:

Ayn Rand / Objectivism	Epicurus
Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips, and guns— or dollars. Take your choice— there is no other— and your time is running out. (Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged)	And for

…

Cassius

March 1, 2021 at 9:08 AM

Quote from SillyApe

what else can I and other people do to deal with anger, resentment, and especially anxiety in scenarios like this?

Whether or not (and why) western society is currently having an uptick of increasing criminal violent behavior, is hard to know. Consider that perhaps anger and resentment are a kind of fuel for those who are the perpetrators of crime and violence, and which causes them to justify their actions. But those who cause violence are are not happy people. And there are multifaceted causes that fuel the problem of violent crimes.

If things seem too unsafe, then we (as students of the philosophy of Epicurus) need to take heed and make safer choices such as not riding public transportation, or not going to crowded venues in cities.

And perhaps consider moving to a small town or rural area.

Quote from Don

The trick or treating and parties are just having fun, so if they provide pleasure with a minimum of pain, why not participate in the popular civic festival.

It is up to each person to decide if and how to engage with popular modern day festivals... however... I want people to open their eyes and realize that they are participating in something that in many aspects elevates ideas that insist that there is a spirit that survives death and that there are spirits around that "enjoy causing pain and trouble for others". In many aspects the "dark spirit of Halloween" is about a disassociated aspect of human beings and their subconconsciously supressed potential for violence. Also, it is not taking into account that violent acts are often done by psychotic people who have uncontrolled schizophrenia or severe brain injuries.

As for ancient Epicureans, I would guess that there were some civic events that they participated in and others which they drew the line and said nope, not going to.

I think that the Epicurean philosophy is still in a "rebirth" phase and so we haven't really sorted out these issues.

Also, western civilization is so individualized (as is this forum) that we don't have group practices or alternative celebrations established.

Another excerpt from that article:

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“The real benefit of Halloween is for adults, not children,” Cindy Dell Clark, a professor emeritus of anthropology and author of "All Together Now: American Holiday Symbolism Among Children and Adults," tells TODAY.com. “It’s one day where (adults) can have the catharsis of just mocking death in its face, lampooning it, pinning it up on their house. But ... for children it’s serious. At age 6 or 7, when adults take them to a haunted house, they are truly frightened.”

I think that there are more questions coming up regarding the idea of the "catharsis" of Halloween for adults. And does it end up mocking death in such a manner so that a person doesn't really have to think deeply about mortality?

Of course, Epicurean philosophy addresses the concept of death in such a very different manner. There isn't anything there for us to mock!