Dear AQ Readers
This issue brings a selection of some of the best articles to pass over your desks and those of the Editors, and so comes with a warm thanks to all who contributed.
Don’t miss the short piece on Optimism below, nor the superbly illuminating second part of “Buddhist Meditation” that follows from May, a reprint from the ever-fresh Theosophical Movement magazine of Mumbai, India.
There the claim is made that when this system is practised and has become ”a firm foundation of one’s character, eleven advantages can be expected: One sleeps at ease, wakes up at ease, sees no bad dreams, he is dear to men, he is dear to ghosts, and is protected by the gods. Also, he is not affected by fire, poison and sword. He is able to concentrate his mind quickly, his features are serene, he dies un-bewildered, and even if he may not penetrate any further, he is one who goes up to Brahmaloka or Brahma’s world”
…. such are the effects of adopting such an outlook of “loving kindness”.
Sceptical about reincarnation? Then you may like to read an impartial review of the work of the late, most genial Dr Ian Stephenson by the then Editor of the Washington Post, on the meticulous way he documented evidences of recovered past-life memories in children…. on p 2.
There’s much more besides these gems, here is the index:
~ ~ ~
So we encourage our readers to a take a little time out, print off a hard copy, and settle into some contemplative reading… and do pass it on to others when you’re finished.
Yours ever, The AQ Editors
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Optimism
The question of optimism in Theosophy should be examined.
It must be clarified that theosophy – as every true philosophy- is about happiness. Thus a natural optimism emerges from the perception that inner (not apparent) happiness or bliss is the natural result of life, when life is lived in a correct way.
The noble eightfold path is in fact the path to happiness or nirvana.
Theosophy can only be seen as the path of woe from the point of view of lower self, which is illusory.
True, suffering is part of life. No doubt about that. This is so because life implies illusions and therefore brings about pain and frustration for those vehicles or principles that move at the level of illusion.
Dukkha, pain or suffering , and more literally “insatisfaction” or affliction, is the first noble truth of Buddhism.
This is so because it is the starting point of the path towards happiness, bliss, liberation, nirvana.
Therefore Optimism in theosophy does not deny probation or suffering. Just the opposite. It enables us to understand tests and frustration, and to learn from them.
True optimism does not distort facts in the vain hope to deny suffering or confirm one’s naïve expectations, pet illusions or vain attachments.
Optimism in theosophy consists in recognizing the fact that for each pain there is a lesson, and often more than one; and that these lessons can be learned in a conscious way, if one sincerely looks for the causes of suffering.
There is no naïve idealization in true Optimism.
Any lasting Optimism is based on Discernment. Optimism is that confidence in Life that makes one live in peace amidst the perspective of natural disasters that may significantly reduce human population, with no exceptions granted to ourselves or our friends.
True optimism can appear to be severe because it is deep and therefore does not have to appear on the surface for everyone to see and supposedly applaud.
Optimism, or confidence in the Future, is a deep source of the feeling and of the understanding that sustain long-term self-sacrifice. One needs to have true optimism to make a vow to dedicate one’s life to an ideal, and also to be loyal to such a vow, leaving aside any expectations for short-term and illusory results, including avoidance of personal pain.
Optimism in esoteric philosophy is therefore the ability to see and to get in harmony with the essence of Life, for essence is the territory of Law, and Law is both the vehicle and the source of bliss.





July-August ’10 AQ: Plato’s musical code
Dear Friends
After 2,400 years a new musical code has been publically brought to light in Plato’s writings. What he hid and why remains to be answered in the years to come – this great research stands to break new ground and may offer the best insights into Plato since Thomas Taylor.
Why did he use a code? A reason for reticence by Occultists (those of the ‘right-hand path’ at least) not to reveal more than a little is their vow of secrecy and to protect those below their degree from the danger of acquiring too much knowledge before time. This is common sense… do we allow a learner to drive a car unescorted? Surely not, at least until they have first passed a ‘test’. Plato followed this rule by inserting knowledge ‘for those who can read’ in a hidden musical code – read about it on p 1,with a commentary from the Secret Doctrine on p 3.
There is more inside, see especially the account of George Washington’s extraordinary vision of the future of the US, part of which has come about – yet a great battle is to come, on p 4; and on p 13 news of the publication of additional ‘Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge’ by HPB now out in hardback, “The Secret Doctrine Commentaries”, which was announced at the ITC Hague Conference in August, which we also report on.
Monitoring Planet Gaia ……………………………………….. 7
Life Ball 2010 in Vienna ……………………………………….. 10
Dionysus on Battles with Atlanteans in N. Africa ……. 12
The Secret Doctrine Commentaries ……………………… 13
2010 ITC Conference at The Hague …………………….. 13
Yours fraternally,
The AQ editors
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Plato’s musical code revealed after 2,400 years
by a Canadian correspondent
A ground breaking new book has been published on the hidden “Musical Structure of Plato’s Dialogues”, being called “A Quick Guide to the Strongest Evidence”.
As the correspondent said who brought it to the attention of the AQ “it seems that he offers the best understanding since Thomas Taylor.”
It was from the CBS radio show “As it Happens” the discussion was Kennedy’s research on the Music and Math concealed in Plato’s work. He indicated that it was so concealed as to avoid the Greek church dogma at the time.
“But, friend, when you grasp the number and nature of the intervals of sound, from high to low, and the boundaries of those intervals, and how many scales arise from them, which those who came before handed down to us, their followers, to call ‘harmonies,’ and when you grasp the various qualities inhering in the motions of the body, which they said must be measured with numbers and named ‘rhythm’ and ‘metre,’ and when you apprehend that every One and Many should be so investigated, when you have grasped all of that, then you are wise …”
Plato, ‘Philebus’
Let’s see how it was covered in a recent radio broadcast from CBS and then by Dr Kennedy:
“The writings of the Greek philosopher Plato have been credited with providing the foundations for modern Western culture and science.
“And since he stopped his philosophizing about two thousand, three hundred and fifty years ago – right around the time he died – we’ve had plenty of time to go over what he left us.
“Which scholars have done, thoroughly, for centuries, everywhere in the world. So it’s all the more amazing that, despite all that focused attention, a science historian at the University of Manchester (UK) is now saying a significant part of Plato’s writing has been completely ignored. Although, to be fair, that significant part was a bit tough to find.”
Research Scholar Dr. Jay Kennedy says: “there are secret coded messages hidden throughout Plato’s work that will completely transform our understanding of early Western thought and the great scholar himself.”
And luckily for us, Dr. Kennedy has cracked the “Plato code”. No one tell Dan Brown.”
from CBS Radio, to listen again: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20100707.shtml
go to Part 1, at approx 11 minutes into the show.
In Dr Kennedy’s words from his blog and book:
In antiquity, many of Plato’s followers said, in various ways, that Plato wrote symbolically or allegorically, and that his true philosophy would be found in the layers of meaning underneath the surface stories he tells. In ancient religions, sects, guilds, and fraternities, it was normal to ‘reserve’ knowledge to initiates and Plato, they contended, had used symbols to hide his philosophy within his writings.…
I am a philosopher who specialises in an area called the History and Philosophy of Science. This field was transformed a generation or so ago when it was widely recognised that the study of primitive pseudo-sciences was necessary to understand the birth of our modern sciences. To understand chemistry, it was necessary to study alchemy; to understand astronomy, it was necessary to study astrology. Unusually among Plato scholars, I was therefore familiar with the numerology and music theory which was at the heart of early Pythagoreanism. This interdisciplinary preparation enabled me to see and decipher Plato’s musical symbolism.…
Even for those who are not specialists, these results should be thrilling. Western culture is sometimes said to rest on the twin pillars of Socrates and Jesus, two poor men who wrote nothing. Plato’s teacher Socrates launched philosophical and scientific research in Athens, but we know of him primarily through Plato’s writings. The philosophy and science of Socrates and Plato combined with the religions of the East in the Roman period to create central strands of what became modern European culture. Now our understanding of the birth of that culture will need to be reworked. Plato is sometimes thought of as a cold fish who banished poets and pushed the West toward logic, mathematics, and science. Now we know he was a hidden romantic. The philosophy contained beneath his stories mixes science and mysticism, mathematics and God. By understanding our roots better, we understand ourselves better.
…
Perhaps even more surprisingly, Plato’s positive philosophy shows us how to combine science and religion. Today we hear much of the culture wars between believers and atheists, between those who insist our world is imbued with meaning and value and those who argue for materialism and evolution.
For Plato, music was mathematical and mathematics was musical. In particular, we hear musical notes harmonising with each other when their pitches form simple ratios.
For him, the perception of this beauty in music was at once the perception of a beauty inherent in mathematics. Thus mathematics and the laws governing our universe were imbued with beauty and value: they were divine.
Modern scientists don’t ask where their fundamental laws come from; for Plato, the beauty and order inherent in mathematical law meant its source was divine (a Pythagorean version of modern deism). Plato may light a middle way through today’s culture wars.
Regarding the codes Plato embedded into his writing Dr Kennedy illustrates how this was done:
“… certain patterns of musical symbols are repeated at regular intervals through Plato’s Symposium and mark out the notes of a known musical scale.
“More specifically, the evidence below will show that passages containing subtle constellations of symbols are located at each twelfth of the way through the text of the Symposium. That is, clusters of terms with symbolic meanings are located at one-twelfth, at two-twelfths, and so forth.
“The ancient Pythagoreans reportedly held that the cosmos had an underlying musical or mathematical structure.”
He shows how the analysis of Plato’s dialogues contains these mathematical scales and illustrates them in the texts:
He makes a well-made case for the hidden esoteric meaning in Plato’s works:
The so-called neo-Pythagoreans, also from about the first century BCE, claimed that Pythagorean doctrines were symbolically embedded in Plato’s dialogues. Tarrant summarises the fragmentary remains of these neo-Pythagoreans:
“All this suggests [their] belief that Pythagorean doctrines are hidden in Plato, who for one reason or another is reluctant to reveal them, and that true Pythagoreanism can be teased out of Platonic texts by in-depth interpretation.
“… So it would seem safe to say that something quite esoteric is regularly being detected beneath Plato’s text, concealing details of the allegedly Pythagorean metaphysic that Pythagoreans, almost as a matter of faith, supposed to exist there.”
Full copy of the text from: http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/jay.kennedy/Symp%20Mus%20Book%20pp1-53.271-8.pdf
website http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/jay.kennedy/
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Plato
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Tagged 2010 ITC Conference at The Hague, American Indians, Battles with Atlanteans in N. Africa, Dionysus, Geo-Planetary Situation, Life Ball 2010 in Vienna, Monitoring Planet Gaia, musical code, Plato, The Secret Doctrine Commentaries, Washington's Vision