I'm hard at work preparing for my next course. I'm going to keep this thread open to share some of the ideas behind it. indica.courses/enroll/cohort/… I suppose one could say that this course is my chance to be a "native informant" with respect to my own tradition. But it is, of course, one in which I am a dissident in certain important respects, chiefly in being a polytheist.

"The gods of the Platonic tradition are totally benevolent towards mankind. They are aware of human activities, hear humans' prayers and feel charis [grace] at humans' sacrifices and dedications, are concerned for humans' welfare, and bring to humans a multitude of benefits… "The gods so described resemble closely the gods described in the best sources for practised religion, gods who also are aware of humans' activity, hear prayers, feel charis at sacrifices and dedications, and bring many good things to humans…

Bastet with Nefertum figure, sistrum, and basket metmuseum.org/art/collection… The figure is of Bastet or an iconographically similar Goddess; there is no inscription.

Some remarkable passages from Davi Kopenawa’s book The Falling Sky, discussing the Gods of the white people’s ancestors, whom white people have forgotten, but of whom Kopenawa and other Yanomami spiritworkers are aware. “Do not think that the napënapëri images we make dance are those of the white people who are nearby around us. Those white people of the present only want our death.”

The nudity of Aphrodite is comparable to the frontality of depictions of Hathor, atypical for Egyptian Gods, the significance of which is likely the immediacy of Their manifestation, both being associated with beauty and pleasure.
Hathor shares Her frontality with Bes, who is closely linked to Her in the Returning Goddess rites. (The image of Bes on the left comes from the great temple of Hathor at Dendera.) Hathor inherits Her frontal iconography from Bat, who we see in a Predynastic depiction at right.

Matter, inferior to Being, derives from the One, which is superior to Being: this schematic account is correct but also potentially misleading if we do not understand that what is meant is the composition of causes represented by the manifold of henads. Strictly speaking, there is no more in Proclus a discrete something that is "the One" than there is such a thing as "Matter". The former is the regress of individuation before the intellect, as the latter is the regress of formation.

Aristotle's Meta-zoology: Shared Life and Human Animality in the Politics academia.edu/38657941/Arist… "In contemporary theoretical engagement with Aristotle's political thought, little attention has been given to what we can learn about zōē from the fact that it can be shared …

There is clearly an analogy between Odysseus' preserving his nous intact from Kirke (X 329) and her description of Teiresias having been granted nous even in death by Persephone (494-5). "Who with his eyes could behold a God against His will, whether going to or fro?" (Od. X 573-4). Cp. Plato, Tim. 41a, the Gods "manifesting themselves so far as they choose"; Plotinus, Pheidias capturing "what Zeus would look like if he willed to manifest himself visibly."

Interesting that Arthavaveda 13,4, which appears on its face to be a hymn praising Indra as encompassing all the Devas (see esp. 46-7), in effect a vishvarupa of Indra, is apparently universally treated by Western scholars as a hymn to the Sun. Seems ideological to me? "Pagan solar monotheism" has been a popular theoretical construct since the late 19th century. The real issue, though, it seems to me, is a defense against the recognition of polycentricity.

Every culture has its own temporality, its own future unfolding organically from the formal potentials contained in its cosmogony. Every culture's temporality is rooted in what is given uniquely to it from its "creation myth". This is what people fail to grasp when they prattle on about different mythic cosmogonies "contradicting" one another. They have forgotten what these cosmogonies *do*. They are not static narratives, but active generators of temporalities, they produce time.

@moselmensch In one respect, of course, the question answers itself: because these great thinkers are cultural capital of which monotheists and atheists wish to avail themselves. @moselmensch Another reason is the value for them of depriving the traditions from which they come of the "classical" thinkers at their fountainhead. This is particularly important in situations where there is a living tradition to delegitimate.

"The affection of children for their parents, like that of humans for the Gods, is the affection for what is good, and superior to oneself... "...for they have bestowed on them the greatest benefits in being the cause of their existence and rearing, and later of their education." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1162a4-7)

One of the virtues of radical polytheism is that recognizing the uniqueness and agency of each God prevents what has come to be called a "folkish" interpretation of the pantheons, in which the unity of the pantheon is placed ontologically prior to the individual deities. This was something that I already argued, in terms appropriate to the context, in my dissertation, written at a time when I had as yet had but little contact with the actual pagan community.

@intellisurfer @GhorAngirasa @pinakasena In many cases, however, these are not anthropomorphic characteristics but arcana. Many of these ancient cults had mysteries, initiations and esoteric doctrines which were symbolized by these myths, they weren't just stories. @intellisurfer @GhorAngirasa @pinakasena We mistake myths for literature, when many of them ought to be regarded more like technical manuals.

Today's festival of the Demokrateia reminds us that democracy in ancient Greece was not a "secular" matter, arising in a space cleared from religion, but rather depended upon a form of religion congenial to it; indeed, it had a whole theology of its own. The pluralism basic to polytheism was strengthened in the Greek case by the themes we can see in Hesiod's Theogony of the importance of persuasion in the reign of Zeus, and of the balancing and harmonization of timai, or prerogatives, of different individuals and groups.

The Hellenic model of sovereignty changes. During the age of kings, documented in Linear B, Poseidon embodies the archaic sovereignty of the lord of horses. With the rise of the polis, Zeus provides the new model, together with his equal queen, Hera, and his executive, Athena. A big part of this shift can be attributed to Hera. In Linear B, Poseidon has a feminine counterpart, Poseidaija, as Zeus has Dione. These may be compared to consort Goddesses like Amunet for Amun in Egypt. *But*, Amun has also Mut, as Zeus has Hera.

It is important to recognize that there was a Western ideological interest in ensuring that Indian philosophy was not seen as in direct competition with Western philosophy. Treating its categories as theological ones accomplishes this. There's a fine chapter in The Nay Science about how the first Western readers of Indian philosophy were engaging with it *as philosophy*, and how this got shut down, largely under the influence of Hegel.