1985-03-19 NSFRI - Plato - Phaedo - The Four Rivers of the Earth and the Body
Channel: Pierre Grimes and the Noetic Society
Date: 2018-03-09

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 Pierre Grimes and the Noetic Society -- 1985-03-19 NSFRI - Plato - Phaedo - The Four Rivers of the Earth and the Body
Dialogue(s): phaedo Sections: 107c-115a 5:30 107c If the soul is immortal, if we neglect it..the danger now appears to be terrible. 6:45 114d -e The charm/antidote to this neglect. 8:00 We cannot save the soul in any other way than to make it as good as possible and as wise. 9:00 107d Education and nurture - the soul takes nothing with it through the entire journey but these, what you have learned, your development, your paideia. 10:45 Mapping the journey: two possible guides and four divisions. 11:40 107d ...the soul takes nothing but... 12:00 The first guide, the tutelary genius of each individual, conducts those who come from this world to a place of judgment after death. 15:30 The second guide leads them back, after they have received their due. 17:20 But back to where? To where they started from? Or back to reincarnation? 19:00 If the paths were single or simple, there would be no need of guides. 21:00 108a The wise and orderly encounter the companions of the gods (3rd guide) 22:45 108a the wise and orderly understands his circumstances: Pierre: “This is an important learning”, where is soul is going and what it is doing. 25:00 108d Simmias: What do you mean, Socrates? 26:00 Pierre: Why “Earth”? 28:00 Pierre: What is true of “the earth” is equally true of “a body”: there is a parallel. If a body can be in a similar state, a similar result will occur. 30:45 “Earth” is pure, in pure heaven. We dwell in “a hollow of the earth” and think we dwell “on its upper surface”. If we were not so feeble and sluggish, we could raise our heads up out of the “air” like fishes raising their heads out of the water, and see things in “the upper world” as they really are, and recognize the real heaven and the real earth. 32:15 Pierre: Whatever can said for the earth can be said for the body. Just as the “earth” is described by Socrates, so too can our existence in the body. 34:00 Just as “the earth itself is pure and situated in a pure heaven” ... 36:30 Pierre: Overcoming our feebleness to rise above the atmosphere of the world we live in, to see it from “above”. 38:54 A constant theme in Plato: “feebleness and sluggishness”. 39:30 “This is the real heaven, the real light, the real earth” 40:30 Pierre: There is nothing wrong, we are just looking the wrong direction. So all that smog and brine causes great damage to our vision of the “earth”. 43:15 110c The colors of the earth. 44:20 Our stones, gems, precious stones are just fragments of “those there”. 45:45 Pierre: What is it like viewing from the top of it all? 49:30 “Ours” is a fragment of “theirs”. Our world, our life, our vision versus those who have achieved the “real world” and the “real life” by the effort of living lives of purity and philosophy. 50:30 “True and Beautiful Beings in Pure Transparent Light”. 57:50 112a Each of the four “rivers” in the earth have the nature of the earth through which they flow... 58:20 Pierre: By our original analogy, the same is true of each individual man. 1:00:00 Pierre: If you have no foundation, “you pick up your nature from the world that surrounds you”. 1:03:00 112b-d The Serpent Power. Pierre's diagram: Kundalini - the retention of vital “fluids” or forces. 1:07:00 112e The four rivers Oceanus, Acheron, etc. , as paths for different souls. 1:11:40 114b-c Those who have excelled in holy things....are freed...they mount upwards. 1:19:30 The Four Rivers diagrammed. 1:20:47 Acheron: “Those who neither do good nor evil”, flows into Arethusian Lake. 1:21:30 Tartarus: “Those who are incurable on account of the greatness of their wrongdoings...never return; those who are curable...are cast back out again after a year.” 1:24:00 Cocytus: “Homicides”. 1:24:00 Pyriphlegethon: “Those who have performed outrages on their parents”. 1:30:00 Further diagramming the Four Rivers. 1:36:00 Pierre: What would be the four positive correspondences in man? 1:39:30 HyperSphere/HyperCube: Upper surfaces overlaid above lower surfaces. (Thanks to BillD for videorecording, and to HScottA for title, cataloguing, and above notes.) More info: http://noeticsociety.org Stephanus Pages, Explicit (for searching): 107c 107d 107e 108a 108b 108c 108d 108e 109a 109b 109c 109d 109e 110a 110b 110c 110d 110e 111a 111b 111c 111d 111e 112a 112b 112c 112d 112e 113a 113b 113c 113d 113e 114a 114b 114c 114d 114e 115a