The Pythagorean Brotherhood

Technorati Tags: Societies,Secret,Greek,Pythagorean,Brotherhood

 

Pythagoras was a legendary ancient Greek philosopher. Born c. 570 BCE in Samos, he moved to Magna Graecia (the network of Greek colonies in Southern Italy) where his potent blend of mathematics and mysticism attracted young men from aristocratic backgrounds to form the Pythagorean Brotherhood, a secret society or cult.

According to legend, Pythagoras had acquired his wisdom during his travels in Egypt and the East (similar claims were later made in modern times for Madame Blavatsky and Aleister Crowley, but he also borrowed heavily from the ancient mystery religions. He was said to have made important mathematical discoveries (such as the theorem that still bears his name), identified the ratios that govern music, originated the doctrine of “transmigration of the soul” – essentially reincarnation – and stressed the importance of sacred geometry (a concept central to Freemasonry). Pythagoras believed that number was the organizing principle of the universe, and that he could hear the music of the spheres. Because of his belief in reincarnation, Pythagoras preached strict vegetarianism, in which beans were also banned.

Candidates for the Pythagorean Brotherhood had to undergo a strict initiation procedure. After a tough interview, they had to swear an oath on a sacred triangle known as the tetractys, sign over all their worldly possessions to the group and take a five-year vow of silence. During this period they became akousmatikoi, or listeners, allowed to listen to Pythagoras teach only from behind a veil. Eventually they would graduate to become mathematikoi, members of the inner circle. Later these two classes diverged, so that those known as mathematikoi followed the scientific philosophical aspects of Pythagorean teachings, while those called akousmatikoi, followed the mystical oral teachings, or symbola, of Pythagoras.

The Pythagorean Brotherhood became powerful and politically influential, but ended up supporting the losing side in a clash between local political parties that descended into violence. Their headquarters in the city of Crotona was burned to the ground and many of the Brotherhood were killed. Pythagoras himself escaped into exile, but died a few years later c. 495 BCE. His philosophy lived on, however. Plato was an aid admirer, and indeed much of what is attributed to Pythagoras may be Platonic invention. Versions of Pythagorean mysticism became profoundly influential in the Western tradition that led to Hermeticism, alchemy and Rosicrucianism. It has been claimed that the Brotherhood lived on in one form or another to form the roots of many subsequent secret societies, such as the Freemasons.

 

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Jalaluddin Rumi

1207 – 1273, Afghanistan

Technorati Tags: Mevlevi,Sufi,Silk Road,Islam

 

Jalaluddin Rumi, founder of the Mevlevi order of Sufi dervishes, was without a doubt one of the most open-hearted and ecstatic consorts of the Beloved of all time. Born in the remote village of Balkh (now part of Afghanistan), Rumi spent most of his life in Konya, Turkey, which in the thirteenth century lay at the western edge of the Silk Road and was a mingling spot for merchants and mystics alike. There Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and even Buddhists crossed paths. In his late thirties, Rumi, a respected scholar of theology, started a school of divinity. He was a consummate Sufi, or seeker of God. Some consider Sufism to be the mystical branch of Islam, others hold it to be the pursuit of truth and communion with the Divine in any aspirant of any tradition. There is no reality, exhort the Sufis, but God; only Love, Lover, and Beloved; mere emptiness to be filled with all that is God.

Without a doubt, the defining moment of Rumi’s life was his meeting, in those same streets of Konya, with Shams (meaning “sun”) of Tabriz. A wandering dervish with no school of his own, Shams sought no great or subservient following. He merely sought one receptive soul spacious enough to contain his teachings and to be a companion in Divine ecstasy. As Rumi rode his donkey through the market stalls of Konya, he was pierced by the penetrating glance of Shams, and would never again be as he was. “Who,” challenged Shams, “was greater – Mohammed or Bestami [a renowned Sufi master claiming to have merged with God]?” Immersed in the question, Rumi came to the realization in that very moment that he need search no further. He stood face to face with God.

Shams and Rumi became inseparable, engaging in shared communion with the Divine, sometimes spoken, often in silence. Their spirits commingled, immersed in contemplation, meditation, revelation, and celebration. Rumi’s students came to be quite jealous of Shams and, in 1247, murdered him, leaving no trace of his body. Rumi was devastated, but eventually came to know that Shams was ever with him; they remained inseparable, in spirit as in body. His sublime odes to Love, Lover, and Beloved, the Sufi trinity, may be considered an ongoing dialogue with his precious teacher and companion.

The Mevlevi order has spread throughout the world, and Rumi’s ecstatic verses continue to set many a heart and soul aflame. Intoxication is the word that most aptly describes Rumi’s love affair with the Divine. Imbibing the delicious nectar of the spirit, turning ‘round and ‘round in absolute harmony with the music of the spheres, Rumi celebrates the absolute harmony with the music of the spheres, Rumi celebrates the dance of the spirit. A Sufi, filled with ecstasy, remarked to his companion that his cup overflowed with the wine of the spirit. So bursting was he with his Beloved that there was no room left for even one more drop of wine. “Never,” the other replied, “can one have too much of God, as he floated a rose petal atop the full-to-the-brim goblet.” So is the bursting heart and spirit of Jalaluddin Rumi.

 

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The Eternal Battle

Technorati Tags: Societies,Secret,ancient,modern,eternal

 

Secret societies like the Freemasons incorporate many religious ideas that come from non- and pre-Christian sources, so to understand the secret knowledge that such societies teach to their initiates, it is necessary to look at the pagan religions that were the original sources of these ideas. One of the most important of these ideas is called dualism. Dualism first became central in the religion known as Zoroastrianism.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrinaism was the first monotheistic (believing in one god) religion, based on the teachings of the legendary Zoroaster, or Zarathustra, a Persian priest who probably lived around 1200 CE. Zoroaster preached that there was one supreme god, Ahura Mazda, but that he was opposed by an evil force called Angra Mainyu, which actually controlled the material world. He believed that life was an eternal battle between the forces of light and dark. Each individual had to choose his or her side in this battle. This teaching is a form of dualism: the belief that all of creation is defined by two opposing forces – light and dark, good and evil, spirit and matter. Dualism would become enormously important to the philosophical underpinning of secret societies.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is not a specific religion but more of a philosophy that can be applied to any religion. As a school of thought it probably began in Alexandria in the 1^st century CE and is most commonly associated with Christianity, although there are also influential varieties of Jewish and Islamic Gnosticism. Gnosticism is important in the history of secret societies as the source of a radical form of dualism that would give rise to the Cathars, influence the Knights Templar and inspire the secret heart of Freemasonry and related groups.

Gnosticism was concocted from a diverse brew of influences, including Zoroastrianism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism, Egyptian religion, Jewish mysticism, Christian theology and even Buddhism. Its name comes from the Greek gnosis, meaning “knowledge,” a reference to the essential knowledge at its heart: that the universe has a dual nature, and that we are consigned to the bad part. According to Gnosticism, the realm of light and goodness is the non-material universe, while the physical, material universe, while the physical, material world – the world of reality, of human beings and their physical bodies – is the realm of darkness and evil. Gross matter is viewed as a corruption of the purity of spirit, while god is a sort of non-material divine essence of pure light and spirit. As physical beings, men and women are separated from the heavenly bliss of union with this divine essence, often called the Godhead. Fortunately for mankind, each human has a soul or spirit, often described as a spark of divine essence, and the struggle against evil and for salvation is actually a struggle to liberate this spark of the divine from the gross material world so that it can become reunited with the divine Oneness.

The key point here is that this struggle is individual to each person, and that the route to salvation lies within. Gnosis involves direct experience of the divine, through accessing the divine spark within. By stressing a personal route to salvation, Gnosticism inevitably undermines the claims of people of institutions (such a priests or the Church) to act as intermediaries between the common people and God. If salvation comes only from within and is unique to each individual, what need is there for priests, temples or religious dogma of any sort? It is hardly surprising that established religion, and the Catholic Church in particular have always been hostile to “heretical” beliefs such as Gnosticism, and to secret societies such as the Freemasons that share some of these beliefs.

As Gnosticism evolved it took many forms, and the basic gnosis was interpreted in many ways. According to some interpretations, the physical world was created by an evil spirit, or demiurge, equivalent to Zoroastrianism’s Angra Mainyu. This evil demiurge was responsible for the created world that we live in, with all its attendant evil and suffering. Since the Bible, for instance, tells us that the god known as Yahweh was responsible for Creation, for some Gnostics it followed that Yahweh was actually the evil corruptor and that his enemy Lucifer, the Bringer of Light, was the force for good. In fact, one of the names attributed to Jesus in early texts was Lucifer, and in some forms of Gnosticism, Jesus and other figures such as Mohammed and Buddha are seen as beings of light, emissaries sent by the Godhead to help mankind achieve gnosis and to battle against God. From the point of view of mainstream biblical religions, this is shocking heresy and blasphemy.

Some interpretations of Gnosticism went still further. Since being imprisoned in physical bodies was a tragedy for the divine spark within, it made sense to stop perpetuating this tragedy, so that some Gnostics believed in celibacy and others even sanctioned suicide and murder. Alternatively, some believed that the actions of the body could not affect the pure, incorruptible spirit within, and therefore it was acceptable to behave with total moral and sexual license. Again, this was not calculated to appeal to the authorities, intent on maintaining order and the status quo. Accordingly, Gnosticism was vigorously persecuted and Gnostic beliefs had to become closely guarded secrets, revealed only to those who had proved themselves trustworthy and who had been prepared for the shocking revelations of undergoing initiation tests.

The Gnostic version of Christianity was as popular in the early centuries CE as what became the orthodox version, and some traces of it can still be found in the New Testament. In fact, the Bible as it is known today is a canon of scriptures that was whittled down from a larger pool of books or scriptures circulating in the early first millennium. Many of the books were Gnostic in nature, but were suppressed and lost when orthodoxy triumphed, finally fixing the canon at the Synod of Hippo in 393 CE. When a cache of ancient scrolls was found in the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi in 1945, many of these Gnostic books were rediscovered.

The Gnostic sects that had sprung up were mostly suppressed, and although this drove Gnosticism out of the mainstream, it proved impossible to eradicate altogether. Versions of Gnostic Christianity have continued to be practiced up to the present day, while Islamic Sufism and Jewish Kabbalism also kept alive Gnostic traditions. Some of the versions of Gnosticism most significant for the development of secret societies were the Manicheans, the Bogomils and the Cathars.

 

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