@khthoniaa #Proclus writes "all the Gods are boniform, and through intelligible wisdom they have a knowledge ineffable, and established above intellect, thus also, I think, through the summit of beauty, every thing divine is lovely. For from thence all the Gods derive beauty, and being filled with it, fill the natures posterior to themselves, exciting all things, agitating them with Bacchic fury about the love of themselves, and pouring supernally on all things the divine effluxion of beauty."

@Em @AimeeMaroux As Euripides has Herakles say in the eponymous play.

**"Nor can I ever believe that one God is the lord of another.

A God, if he is a real God, is in need of nothing."**

Which works well with a #polycentric framework of #polytheism, I'd say.

Sovereignty of the Gods is shared amongst what #Proclus calls the totality of the divine set (pas ... theios arithmos), a manifold of Gods that are prior to Being where each God contains all of being.

@helmsinepu This is one of my top 10 religious pet peeves. It has to involve a strawmanning of polytheism and animism into versions of them which only exist in monotheist and animist's heads.

I tell them to go read #Proclus or #Iamblichus or #Damascius or some of Hindu philosophers and to get back to me.

Not all are products of intellectual knowledge and aim for a close relationship with the objects that they signify"

From #Proclus, on his Scholia to #Plato's Cratylus.

Saw some fascist idiots on the birb site trying to diss a trans inclusive analysis of #Plotinus so I made these memes based on #Proclus actual own words to show that #Neoplatonism and #Platonism of late antique #Polytheism are in fact very #transinclusive.

Hekate and the New Year Unpacking A Mysterious Ancient Hymn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84S9ai8Mpag&t=1465s

#Hekate #Hecate #Proclus #Janus #KeepingHerKeys

“each of the Gods is the
universe, but after a different manner,”

Proclus In Tim. I, 308

#Proclus #Neoplatonism #Polytheism #Myth #Mythology #Gods #Paganism #Pagan #Platonism #Timaeus

@ytetic I haven't read enough Leibniz to say for sure but post the Renaissance a lot of Proclus was available - #Hegel was a fan of #Proclus for sure.

Hegel believed that Proclus was a better example of Plato’s philosophy than was Plotinus because Plotinus was overly influenced by Arisotle whereas Proclus refused to place any other philosopher between himself and Plato.

@ytetic Incarnation for Humans souls yes, but not for #Gods. But the Gods work at different levels/emanations of reality in #Neoplatonism so #Proclus discusses a God like Zeus operating/manifesting at 5 different levels as the Paternal God of the Intellect/Demiurge of the Hypercosmic Soul, Demiurge of Nature, and the Encosmic (aka the material world) as Zeus the planet aka Jupiter.

but the power that provides unification is foreign to the one who presides over the division and opposition of encosmic things [Ares]. So it is this cooperation of dissimilar causes that the myths have referred to as adultery." Proclus, Commentary on the Republic 141f. (2/2)

I like this from Proclus as it works as a continuation of #Empedocles idea of the Cosmos sustained by Love/Strife

#Proclus #Polytheism #Aphrodite #Ares #Hephaestus #Paganism #Myth #Neoplatonism #GreekMythology #Mythology

"Both require Aphrodite for their own activity: Ares so that he can implant harmony and order among the opposites, Hephaestus so that he can produce in perceptible creations beauty and splendour because communion with the cause which produces beauty and binds together belongs by nature to the demiurge of perceptible things [Hephaestus], (1/2)

#Proclus #Polytheism #Aphrodite #Ares #Hephaestus #Paganism #Myth #Neoplatonism

Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, and strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul. Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife.
-Homeric Hymn 8, to Ares

A very late written Homeric Hymn sometimes attributed to #Proclus because it's close to his style of #Platonic hymns.

#Polytheism #Myth #Ares #Paganism #Neoplatonism

@ytetic Well Being itself in #Neoplatonism is usually associated with Phanes, who is neither male nor female but a mix (as all of reality is).

But here Hera has a role over the generation of life as individual beings. “the source of all the Titanic division [diairesis ]perceived in souls according to destiny [ moiras], and the cause of distinction [diakrisis ]" says #Proclus as in Hera presides over our existence as separate individuals. #Polytheism #Neoplatonism

It is not, therefore, that the insanity Hera causes in Herakles has the ancillary benefit of causing his civilizing labors: rather, Herakles’s labors and his insanity are symbolically one and the same . Heroic action is in a certain sense, then, linked to divine passion." (4/4)

Edward Butler (@EPButler@twitter.com) "Queen of Kinêsis: Understanding Hera"

https://www.academia.edu/5098733/_Queen_of_Kin%C3%AAsis_Understanding_Hera_pp_126_148_in_Queen_of_Olympos_A_Devotional_Anthology_for_Hera_and_Iuno_ed_Lykeia_Asheville_NC_Bibliotheca_Alexandrina_2013_

#Proclus #Neoplatonism #Hera #Myth #Polytheism #GreekMythology #Polytheist #Pagan #Platonism

The insanity of #Herakles or of Io, which are attributed to Hera, are thus symbols of the procession of soul into the physical realm, away from the realm of pure Mind and thus, by definition, in the direction of ‘insanity’. By causing ‘insanity’ in Herakles, Hera leads him to the performance of labors that result in new possibilities for humanity; they are labors of civilization. (2/?) #Neoplatonism #Proclus #Hera #Myth #Mythology #Platonism

"#Proclus says that the myths designate Hera “the cause of insanity [mania], but Zeus of temperance [sôphrosunê ]; and the former, of labors in the realm of becoming, but the latter, of leading up from it [anagôgê]. For Hera excites all things to procession, multiplies them, and causes them by her illuminations to be prolific” ( In Tim. III, 251). (1/?) #Neoplatonism #Hera #Zeus #Polytheism #Mythology

"Every God in his/her own existence [huparxis] possesses the providence [pronoein] of the universe [tôn holôn], and the primary providence is in the Gods”

(Proclus Elements of Theology prop. 120) #Proclus #Polytheism #Neoplatonism

@khthoniaa I like these kind theological perspective that remove that hard/soft polytheist distinction.

It's similar to the All-in-All of the likes of #Platonists like #Proclus, where every God is the Universe and contains all things (including the other Gods) in them but maintains their individuality.

I like Edward Butlers philosophy of #Polycentric #Polytheism based on this.

https://www.academia.edu/30296722/_Polycentric_Polytheism_pp_37_40_in_Witches_and_Pagans_32_June_2016_

(Polycentricity seems apt for Fediverse too!)

@eioua Interesting, I was thinking Leibnitz may have done something similar but I'm not very familiar with him I have to say.

This idea is also apparent earlier in #Proclus where every Henad (Unit, which is to say God) contains the universe, but each in their own way.

The interesting thing here is that every Henad also contains every other Henad. Which to me is suggesting some kind of proto-holographic universe.

Maybe if I can retire from work and become a gentleman scholar I can look at what would #Proclus make of Mastodon? Or "Many Gods, Many Instances, the #Polytheism of the Fediverse".