An Essay on Stoicism
Reading from C.R. Haines, translator.
§ Note: The correct pronunciation is Owe-RAY-lee-us. I originally intended this unit to go in 12 Ideosophy.
Penguin classic, original cover of my first copy.
Note comments on the essay by Haines:
- Oriental fervor vs Greek acumen
- Stoicism incorporates the aim of the living Gnosis today, namely, to comprehend and participate in the plan of nature
- Nature recreates always on the same plan. Compare: “The world is called an imagination (Kalpana), for it is creative ideation on the recalled memory of the past universe. As the Yogini-Hrdaya-Tantra says, ‘The picture of the world is designed by her own will, seeing which, Bhagavan [Her Beloved] is very pleased.'” Sir John Woodroffe, The Serpent Power, Ganesh & Co., Madras, 1964, p. 27, n 2.
- “Atmospheric current” = pneuma. Ponos = tension. Hence, atmospheric lines of tension, equating to telluric frequencies
- “God is corporeal.” Everything is material.
- “Ruling reason”: hegemonikos. Operating from its own innate laws.
- Stoics rejected prudential morality, doing something for your own benefit of your own soul. Coenonia: interdependence between the individual and society, vs universality
- “Wipe out imagination” means not to presume and project on others
- Seneca is a lame-ass sour sanctimonious fart
On Goethe’s soul-problem (one of many):
Nicholas Boyle describes Spinoza as “the patron of a science of nature deliberately drained of emotional reward.” In early poetry, Goethe used the phrase “embracing embraced” to describe his intuitive and empathic rapport with nature. But after taking the cue from Spinoza, he retracted such poems and declared his view of nature in another way, highlighted in a poem titled Das Gottliche, “Divinity” (1783, age 34).
Let man be noble,
Generous and good;
For that alone
Distinguishes him
From all the living
Beings we know.Hail to the unknown
Higher beings
Of our intuition!
Let man resemble them;
Let his example
Teach us to believe in them.For the realm of nature
Is unfeeling;
The sun sheds its light
Over evil and good
And the moon and the stars
Shine on the criminal
As on the best of us.The wind and the rivers
The hail and the thunder
Storm on their way
And snatch one victim
After another
As they rush past.So too does blind fortune
Grope through the crowd, now
Seizing a young boy’s
Curly-haired innocence
And now the bald pate
Of the old and guilty.As great, everlasting,
Adamantine laws
Dictate, we must all
Complete the cycles
Of our existence.Only mankind
Can do the impossible:
He can distinguish,
He chooses and judges,
He can give permanence
To the moment.He alone may
Reward the good
And punish the wicked;
He may heal and save
And usefully bind
All that strays and wanders.And we revere
The immortals, as if
They were human beings
Who do on a great scale
What little the best of us
Does or endeavors.Let the noble man
Be generous and good,
Tirelessly achieving
What is just and useful:
Let him be a model
For those beings whom he surmises.
The first two lines of stanza three, “For the realm of nature / is unfeeling” renders the German “unfuhlend / Ist die Natur.” It is certainly startling to realize that Goethe, so known for his empathy with nature, proven by his intimate observations of plants, would have concluded that nature does not feel or react to the presence of the human witness.
Boyle tends to over-determine his interpretations about what Goethe thought and felt, but on this count he may be right on. He notes that Goethe’s relation to nature always played out in apposition to his successes and failures with women. One woman in particular, Charlotte von Stein, was his Platonic lovemate for many years. Being Platonic, the bond was not consummated carnally. Boyle speculates that Goethe’s unsatisfactory sexual and romantic fixations account to some degree for his conclusion that “nature” (read: the human female) did not reciprocate his passions. I figure that is quite correct.
Nicholas Boyle, Goethe: The Poet and the Age, Volume I: The Poetry of Desire, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 278. (I read it so you don’t have to.)
By contrast, I reckon that Stoic empathy for nature was felt to be a two-way interactive arrangement.
§ Text added 17 September 2021 JLL