I am currently giving a philosophy summer camp some serious thought. I am thinking perhaps I could make something happen in a small coastal town that is desperate for revenue. I would prefer a year-round establishment, but it would be easiest to promote a summer camp. I need a community that will support the idea as the town's much-needed source of income because I don't have the money to pull this off myself. It would include lectures and discussion groups and massages and meditation. A large building with plenty of land would be nice. At least there needs to be space for camping with facilities for cleanliness and cooking.

What pulls this together for me is you making me aware of Hermetism. I have always wanted to create a retreat but I was thinking along the lines of a spiritual retreat and that idea didn't inspire me as much as working with philosophies around Hermetism and the Greek explanations of happiness inspire me. I like it because of the variety of thought and how it can apply to this moment in time. It is more practical than just spiritualism and that is very appealing to me. I like being more earthy and even global warming and the care of our planet can play into this when we include The Mayan Factor and the book you are reading now.

We are starting to open up and I hope this is not too fast and too soon. •
Lane County, Oregon has a population of 382,067 people and we had 11 new cases of covid. That means we are rated at low risk and can return to almost normal as long as we wear masks and distance ourselves. I don't know how happy I am about this. It means the pool will have twice as many people and I don't like that. I would vote for having the pool all to myself but maybe that is a little selfish?

Thank you for that information. I am not so sure it is different from other common beliefs of the day. From the East, the many come from the one. I am kicking myself for loosing a copy of the I Ching in a move because now I can not check my memory but vaguely I remember something being said and Heaven and Earth and other opposites blending. How I wish my memory were stronger so I could compare each explanation of "it" and transformation.

Michael S. Schneider's book "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe- the Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science" is as a bible to me and I quote...

"Yet, paradoxically, the One is more truly real then the Many. In the visible world of nature all is flux. Everything is either being born or dying or moving between the two processes. Nothing ever achieves the goal of perfection or the state of equilibrium that would allow it to be described in essence. The phenomena of nature, said Plato, are always "becoming", never actually "are". Our five senses tell us that they are real, but the intellect judges differently, reasoning that the One, which is constant, creative, and ever the same, is more entitled to be called real than its ever-fluctuating products." This goes with a concept of numbers that are the language of God and are essential to our understanding of truth.

That is, our idea of this or that is disillusion because it is all fluctuating. I have heard in India it is understood when we speak of one thing we are also speaking of its opposite.

[reply="Nikolas;512381") 9. thus you will possess the light of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly away from you. [/quote]

I have to reply to this again because this morning I am so excited by the number 9. The number goes with the quote for mathematical reasons. I don't really have anything intelligent to say about this, but must repeat, I wish we could gather at a summer camp and one of the things to do would be to explore numbers 3 and 9. It would be fun to use "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe and explore all the numbers, but that would take many days.

How about a Pythagorian Camp and comparing Pythagorian math with Aztec math and life concepts and what this has to do with Hermeticism? You guys are driving me crazy as I am so excited by the discussion we are having and I so much want to gather with like-minded people. I must find away to do this.

I am glad that you are still keeping up the thread consistently, as I never thought that it would last so long. I am still thinking before replying to Nicholas's posts because he has given me a lot to reflect upon. I don't know if you opened the link which he sent put in his last reply to me. It is almost a book in itself and I think that you would probably be interested in it, although it is a fairly difficult read. I am at my mum's house, because she has hurt her knee, so I will probably have to use this site a bit less while I am here, but I do have some interesting books here in her house to keep me busy as well. I think that it will be great if you are able to organize a summer camp in philosophy in your local area and, I am sure that the big philosophy questions about religion will feature strongly.

Yes, it was Nicholas's post that pushed me to check my books, so I could move from the familiar to the unfamiliar and got me so excited I want to take action on a summer camp, but I don't like doing things alone. If there were one other person working with me, today I would be exploring for a good place to do the summer camp. I mean Nicholas got me exploring the mathematical connection and I went crazy with excitement. All of the Hermetic thinking can be brought together with math. Do you realize 3 and 9 have been very important to many cultures? Going back to Jung and Campbell and the consciousness we can all tap into, humans everywhere saw something special in 3 and 9. Why? We have 10 fingers, why don't we have a number for 10 that is not a return to the beginning 1?

And if we can understand the math, the archetypes, we have a center for understanding it all.

↪Athena
I am glad that you are still keeping up the thread consistently, as I never thought that it would last so long. I am still thinking before replying to Nicholas's posts because he has given me a lot to reflect upon. I don't know if you opened the link which he sent put in his last reply to me. It is almost a book in itself and I think that you would probably be interested in it, although it is a fairly difficult read. I am at my mum's house, because she has hurt her knee, so I will probably have to use this site a bit less while I am here, but I do have some interesting books here in her house to keep me busy as well. I think that it will be great if you are able to organize a summer camp in philosophy in your local area and, I am sure that the big philosophy questions about religion will feature strongly. — Jack Cummins

The structure of our universe is mathematical and logical. That is why I know if humanity survives, science and the essence of religion (facts and values) will become complimentary and when they do, the potential for humanity to survive its own self destructive imaginations will become possible.

That is why I asked you what reconciled all the books you've studied. We can have a piece of the truth but are unable to build on it. This is the purpose of CIRET for example.

https://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/index_en.php

Just imagine open minded scientists, skilled artists, and mechanics, representing human types all knowing they have a piece of the puzzle. How can they work to put the pieces together (mind, spirit, and body) in pursuit of the experience of universal human meaning? It requires humility rare in modern times. It is hard to find our essential question and build on it with the balanced whole of ourselves rather than from the dominant side of ourselves..

I am replying to your today's comment rather than giving a response to the link because my thinking feels rather foggy at the moment. What you have said in your post makes me think about the responsibility that comes with knowledge. Perhaps that is why certain ideas were hidden from many people in the form of the esoteric. Even now, even though information is available readily it is unlikely that people will try to understand it or even take an interest in it. Of those who do try to gain specialised knowledge it is essential that they do not abuse the power of it but use it with sensitive understanding, as a basis for wisdom for humanity.

I am replying to your couple of posts previous to the last. When you suggested on what important idea stands out, I did reflect on what I thought about was that considering that I started this thread on religious beliefs, I have not in my own responses touched on the idea of God. I don't know if this is apparent to others, but I am asking myself about this. I have spoken about my own difficulties arising from my religious background and about the importance of looking at all religious perspectives, but I seem to stop there. I probably do believe in some divine power and I don't really believe that life or evolution is merely random, so in that sense I do believe in God.

In looking at religion , I think that there are big differences between that which is taken literally and that which is symbolic. It is hard to know how far to take this though, especially when reading the NewTestament. I don't really believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. I also struggle to know what to make of the miracles and the resurrection of Jesus. One idea which some hold to is the idea of the resurrection may have been of a spiritual body rather than a physical one. Perhaps, living with in a climate of thinking based on the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm physical reality is stressed too strongly as the supreme reality. The Eastern thinkers have a more fluid picture.

I have a sympathy with theosophy and the ideas of Blavatsky. A few years ago I read the writings of Benjamin Creme, and I don't know if you have come across him. He was the founder of transmission meditation and I attended some workshops in this meditation. The meditation is based on the idea of levelling down the energies and the divine hierarchy. I am aware that the idea of a divine hierarchy is questionable in itself. One idea in Creme's teaching which I found interesting was that Jesus was only Christ during the time of his actual ministry. Creme thought that Jesus and the Buddha were both representations of the Christ consciousness.

For a while I was enthralled by Creme's ideas and read a number of his books. However, the biggest problem I found, and I think many other people saw too, was his belief that the Maitreya was living in East London and waiting to emerge. It also appears that he had been awaiting this emergency since 1977, and there were various sightings of him, especially one in Nairobi. However, Creme died in his 90s and Maitreya never made his expected emergence on a wider scale.

I see Creme's ideas as an example of spiritual teachings being interpreted too literally. He relied on what he believed were 'channelled' messages and he seemed to take them too literally. In contrast, to his waiting for Christ consciousness as the Maitreya appearing as a person perhaps Rudolf Steiner's idea of the Cosmic Christ which can be known in our own consciousness may be more helpful.