Original instructions. An interview with Peter Kingsley

An Interview with Peter Kingsley P eter Kingsley is one of a rare class of people: a scholar with a sense of the truths that lie beyond the realm that scholarship can penetrate. A classicist with impeccable credentials —including a Ph.D. from the University of London —he has made a career of venturing past the shores of conventional academics. Kingsley has devoted much ofhis attention to the Presocratic philosophers —the collection of thinkers who flourished in ancient Greece roughly between 600 and 430 sc. Every philosophy student has been introduced to these figures, who include Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles, but the standard view of them —abetted by the fact that their writings survive only in fragments —is that they were crude materialistic thinkers whose merit lies chiefly in serving as precursors to modern science. Kingsley's view of the Presocratics is radically different. He contends that their successors, notably Plato and Aristotle, have given us incomplete and distorted views of them. In works such as Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and Pythagorean Tradition, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, and Reality, Kingsley argues that the Presocratics —the intellectual fathers of Western thought — were not purveyors ofprimitive scientific systems but visionaries and esotericists, whose view of the universe went much broader and deeper than the mere workings of the material world. In his latest book, A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet, and the Destiny of the Western World, published in November 2010, Kingsley focuses on a little-known figure from antiquity named Abaris, who, he says, represents a missing link between the wisdom of Central Asia and the knowledge at the heart of Western civilization. I have known Peter for a number ofyears, and have always been impressed not only by his scholarly rigor but his capacity for seeing old texts and figures with completely new eyes — as well as his remarkable ability to explain his ideas in simple, direct language. I discussed his work with him in an e-mail interview conducted in February-March 2011. To find out more about Peter and his work, visit his Web site: www.peterkingsley.org. —Richard Smoley Richard Smoley: Your work has focused on the Presocratic philosophers of ancient Greece. Could you begin by telling us a bit about this work? What is the conventional view of the Presocratics, and where do you think it is wrong? Peter Kingsley: My work on the Presocratics began when I was still a teenager, although I would preQuest summer 2011 fer to say that this is the time when they started working in earnest on me. And it began not as some intellectual or historical inquiry but as a consuming longing—as a burning need to try and discover what is missing in our modern Western world. Friends of mine were immersing themselves in Buddhism and other Eastern religions, but an inner voice that

Home About Us ∠ 08-10-17 20(04 Programs ∠ News ∠ Online Resources ∠ Membership Donate Original Instructions Originally printed in the Summer 2011 issue of Quest magazine. Citation: Richard Smoley. “Original Instructions.â€​ Quest 99. 3 (Summer 2011): 101 - 10 An Interview with Peter Kingsley  Peter Kingsley is one of a rare class of people: a scholar with a se lie beyond the realm that scholarship can penetrate. A class credentials—including a Ph.D. from the University of Londo career of venturing past the shores of conventional academics. Kingsley has devoted much of his attention to the Presocratic collection of thinkers who flourished in ancient Greece roughly b bc. Every philosophy student has been introduced to these Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles, but th them—abetted by the fact that their writings survive only in frag were crude materialistic thinkers whose merit lies chiefly in serv modern science. Kingsley’s view of the Presocratics is radically different. H successors, notably Plato and Aristotle, have given us incomplet of them. In works such as Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Ma Pythagorean Tradition, In the Dark Places of Wisdom, and Reality, Kingsley argues that th

08-10-17 20(04 intellectual fathers of Western thought—were not purveyors of primitive scientific systems esotericists, whose view of the universe went much broader and deeper than the mere workings of In his latest book, A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet, and the Destiny of the Wester November 2010, Kingsley focuses on a little-known figure from antiquity named Abaris, who, h missing link between the wisdom of Central Asia and the knowledge at the heart of Western civiliza I have known Peter for a number of years, and have always been impressed not only by his s capacity for seeing old texts and figures with completely new eyes—as well as his remarkable ideas in simple, direct language. I discussed his work with him in an e-mail interview conducte 2011. To find out more about Peter and his work, visit his Web site: www.peterkingsley.org. —Richard Smoley  Richard Smoley: Your work has focused on the Presocratic philosophers of ancient Greece. Coul us a bit about this work? What is the conventional view of the Presocratics, and where do you think Peter Kingsley: My work on the Presocratics began when I was still a teenager, although I would is the time when they started working in earnest on me. And it began not as some intellectual or hi a consuming longing—as a burning need to try and discover what is missing in our modern Wes mine were immersing themselves in Buddhism and other Eastern religions, but an inner voice that with its constant clarity and logic instructed me to stay focused on the West. The intuitive understa me that a true solution to our contemporary ills and restlessness has to be found at the heart o looking somewhere else. And so I was drawn to go back, as far as I could, to the dawn and preWestern philosophy: back to the “Presocratics.â€​ The name “Presocraticâ€​ is of course a label for the earliest philosophers who lived before And if you go back to Plato, who considered himself Socrates’ direct disciple and successor germs of all the various attitudes that have defined how people related to these “Presoc amusement and fascination, a certain mysteriously irresistible attraction coupled with an a superiority which tends to become more and more unquestioned with the passing of time. God forb something to learn from those naive Presocratics! At the very best they are nothing but a perfec advanced refinement. But as I was drawn back into the world of the Presocratics, as I became absorbed into the anc

08-10-17 20(04 had left behind, I soon started discovering something totally different. These so-called philo theoretical thinkers or speculators, and they were nothing like rationalists in the modern sense immensely powerful spiritual beings. Greek texts which I was soon to realize had been mistranslated for centuries reveal, when the distortions and mistaken interpretations are blown spiritual teachings and extremely potent meditation techniques that can still be applied and p practiced them myself, and was transformed. I had been brought into direct contact with the line the ancient Masters who, at the dawn of our civilization, helped shape the Western world and being. For me, the first few years of these discoveries were incalculably significant in a personal sense came to realize their much vaster implications—not only for how we approach Western history understand ourselves and the destiny of our culture. These so-called “Presocraticsâ€​ were n they are often presented as. On the contrary, some of them were among the founding fathers of We consciously brought it into existence to serve a sacred purpose. The price for our illusions of sop have completely forgotten this sacred purpose, and one direct result is all the chaos and confusion Just as Native Americans have their venerated ancestors who gave them their “original inst never be forgotten, we in the West also have our original instructions and the great Masters w people such as Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles. The trouble is that we no longer have the acknowledge our ancestors or remember where we came from; and the law in this respect is v forget, when we become so caught up in our complicated ideas that we lose sight of the bigger pict But it’s not only that we in the West have lost any memory of our own sacred roots. E uncover an even more devastating indictment of our forgetfulness, which is that our sacre remembered outside of Western culture. For years I felt entirely on my own in the mystery of wha But then to my amazement I began to discover how medieval Persian Sufis, Arab alchemist teaching all the way from Spain through Egypt to Mecca and into Central Asia, had preserved the of what I had experienced directly for myself: that in fact many of the so-called Presocratics w wisdom and guides of humanity, major prophets and lawgivers who had laid down the spiritual la civilization was originally meant to be. Some of these remarkable figures from the Middle Ag themselves devoted followers and initiatic disciples in the lineage of Presocratic philosopher thousand years before their time—an astonishing story which I started telling in my first book Mystery, and Magic. And gradually everything fell into place as I found what it means to be part just as alive now, just as intensely vital and relevant to the present moment, as it was at the beginn Smoley: In your books, you’ve stated that Western philosophy got off on the wrong track at a history. Could you explain what you mean by this, and what you think the consequences have been Kingsley: With our minds we can invent any number of theoretical approaches to history: evolution so on. But we will never be able to understand the realities of history by staying on the level of

08-10-17 20(04 understand it through our own experience, because everything exists inside us right now. And ev how sincere we are willing to be. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we will start to see how much we have received from life how irresistibly we are drawn as humans to trivialize those extraordinary gifts by taking the transforming the miraculous into something ordinary and expected, safe and routine. The pro constantly on an exceptional level of consciousness, is just as inevitable as our bodies becoming fe tires on our car losing their tread. This explains why, and how, Western philosophy got off on the wrong track so quickly. The wo itself means the love of wisdom; and such a love is immensely dangerous because it means on sacrifice everything for wisdom, even be willing to die for it if necessary. You can see this happe Socrates—and also with some earlier “Presocraticsâ€​ who suffered terribly because compromise. But we as humans soon become frightened of such passion and integrity. There required, and the risks at every stage can seem daunting, so we start cutting corners and look Instead of our primary focus being on the reality of the sacred, on something irresistibly attractive b become more and more centered on our own little thoughts and concerns. Before we know something that once was unimaginably real has been transformed into just a turn of speech; what involved the whole of our being has become nothing but an opportunity for empty speculation in the our academies; and we then cheat ourselves by explaining all these changes as proofs of our “ words, what started out as the love of wisdom becomes institutionalized to the point where any tr excluded. And, without even realizing it, we have lived out one of the great principles tau Presocratics: that, with the passing of time, everything is inevitably transformed into its opposite. Aside from the word “philosophyâ€​ itself, there are hundreds of other examples one cou instance, the expression “common sense.â€​ Now, nobody has the faintest idea what it mean will yell, “Use your common sense!â€​ at youngsters even though they are as clueless as the this mysterious common sense really is. And, as I have explained in my book Reality, it is a mystery. In fact it refers back to what at the dawn of Western philosophy, among Presocratics such the extraordinary practice of becoming conscious simultaneously through all our different senses. and very esoteric, technique used in certain circles for awakening the spiritual powers fast asleep starting to trigger the evolutionary process of becoming a conscious human being. But by the time the expression “common senseâ€​ and started throwing it around as if he knew what it meant, go wrong had gone wrong. In his arrogance he assumed this common sense (which already wa memories for his teacher Plato) must be something fully active in every human being, himself in realized that it’s only the very rare fruit of an extremely arduous initiatory training, because humility to test out Empedocles’ teaching in his own experience. And this is the harsh reality convey esoteric truths: those who see no need for them can never imagine there might be someth because they assume they have it already.

08-10-17 20(04 You can also see this same basic process unfolding in the history of what we cheerfully refer to as all tend to assume we have a fair enough idea of what logic is, and that we even know how to be want. But with Parmenides, generally considered the founding father of Western logic and perhap Presocratic of all, everything was almost the exact opposite of what it is now. For him, logic was a us humans by the goddess at the heart of all existence so as to help guide us back to the realiz which is our ultimate source. To him it was sacred in every possible respect: in its origin, even in t incantatory poetry that he used for communicating it, and also in its overall purpose. Of course you about the divine is nothing but mythological clothing that we more knowledgeable moderns need you start to see exactly what this logic was meant to achieve. In Parmenides’ hands, as in the successor Zeno, it was an infinitely potent tool for shredding all our human illusions about ours nature of reality. And this same destructive force of logic is dramatically evident in the figure of S famous at Athens for paralyzing people’s minds and stunning them into absolute silence. But then, subtly at first with Plato and then much more crudely with Aristotle, everything begins pressured into performing functions quite at odds with what it was designed for, like using a fin vegetables. Rather than allowing the divine to penetrate us with its all-knowing wisdom, logic start our human cleverness. As a result, it completely loses the sharpness of its original focus. Instead ourselves, it ends up being made to bolster and reinforce our illusions; instead of cutting straigh imaginings and deceits and discriminations, it tangles us up inside them even more than before. too, turns into the opposite of itself—just as surely as a ball falling, step by step, down a flight more and more a purely mental, masculine discipline while the feminine mystery at its origin deeper. Here too we have tried to make everything safe and manageable for ourselves, but at a ter In each single one of these cases—philosophy, common sense, logic—we can see how s esoteric is stripped of its sacred meaning and discarded in the marketplace, trampled, misused. A of this process are, very simply, what we see all around us. The end result is the world we now li lost any connection with reality and try to get by in a strangely lifeless existence that never is able taught as children that when we grow up we will become real human beings, whereas in fact even no more than tentative seeds of humanity: seeds that no one knew how to plant or grow. We all and abilities that are far beyond our reach—thinking we already have logic, wisdom, comm remembering that we need to strive for them and that we need help to find them. We have beco West at getting rid of the Masters. And the other consequence is that anybody growing up in this seemingly hollow world of our slightest longing for a fuller reality is almost bound to be drawn to search for that reality somewhe more spiritual realm or in the welcoming bosom of some exotic culture that calls to us with its fas rituals. But to look elsewhere for the reality we have lost at home risks turning out to be the bigge no greater spiritual adventure than to turn back to our own, apparently empty shell of a culture and find the jewels and pearls at its core. Then we have served a purpose larger than ourselves an

08-10-17 20(04 beginning to the end, have done the work of a noble human being.  Smoley: Maybe you could speak a little more to the issue of Western scholarship, and why it has p at odds with what you are describing. Kingsley: One could be tempted to say Western scholarship is a failed experiment, but that would In fact it has stayed remarkably faithful to its initial function and purpose. The term “schola from an ancient Greek word for people who have nothing better to do with their time than to sit a Nothing could better describe the basic dynamic that powers the endless wheelings of sch discussion nowadays. But at the same time, nothing could be further removed from the impulse tha of the Presocratics—who constantly drew attention to the infinite fragility of our fleeting lives urgency of finding reality before we die. And this is where the crux of the problem lies. Scholars have a wonderful array of tools and ins them; but the irony is that they have very little idea of how to use them rightly. This is because the level of the mind, most often without any awareness of what lies behind the mind or of what is need work wisely. And the mind, you may have noticed, always deceives us into believing we have forgetting the urgency of life, because the reality is that we have no time to spare. Now this hap ever, not only because each of us is going to die but because our whole culture is dying around Whenever such a phase is reached in the life span of a culture, it always brings with it a tremendo gather the essence of the past into the present moment for the sake of the planet’s future. explain in my new book A Story Waiting to Pierce You—most scholars are quite clueless about t behind our, and any other, culture. Everything becomes clear once we accept the fact that scholarship as a whole is not concerned looking for, the truth. That’s just a decorative appearance. It’s simply concerned with pro that might endanger our security; and it does so by perpetuating our collective illusions on a mu individual scholars are aware of. This is why—when it comes to the Presocratics—there is rationally with most scholars, because they will misunderstand whatever you try to say, ignore the o manipulate the evidence they have been entrusted with, and come up with the most absurd pse hope of pleasing their peers while appearing to sound rational. This whole bizarre charade is n human mind gone hopelessly out of control, because scholars have never learned to submit to th for wisdom or logic or common sense as it once was taught. And this brings me back to my very first point, which is that how we understand or misund Presocratics is not just a matter of intellectual or historical concern. To obscure or distort the represent is to cut off the breath, the lifeblood, of our Western world: is to separate us from th purpose of our culture. This is why, at the very beginning of my book In the Dark Places of Wis

08-10-17 20(04 scholars entrusted with understanding the Presocratics have become like the scribes and Pha Jesus: “They hold the keys of knowledge but hide them; and they don’t go in themselves anyone else.â€​ There is a tremendous need for truth in the modern world. Scholars are not unconsciously, they play a role in helping us to forget.  Smoley: Your latest book, A Story Waiting to Pierce You, has the subtitle Mongolia, Tibet, an Western World. Clearly it reaches far beyond the confines of Greek philosophy, or even of We whole. Can you say a little bit about why you were drawn in this particular direction? Kingsley: On the most obvious level this new book has to do with the origins of our Western wisdom is that either Western culture was conceived through some kind of virgin birth in complete the rest of the planet, or that if there were any external influences they must have come only culturesâ€​ such as Egypt or Babylonia or Persia. In fact there certainly were influences from these have documented over many years. But when we look at all the evidence carefully, patiently, op even vaster picture also emerges—a picture of Presocratics such as Pythagoras in very real co we now refer to as Central Asia and Mongolia. There is no longer any need to place all one’s intuitions about the historical importance for humanity of areas such as the Altai Mountains or Gob evidence is there, in the written texts and archaeological records. But as for how all this understanding of Western civilization or its origins, no one has been willing to connect the do together. And it happens to be a story of tremendous oneness—not some nice sentimental oneness which our prejudices intact or a refined spiritual oneness only accessible on some elevated plane of deep, raw, vibrant oneness which is the soil our entire reality is built on. This is a story that em shamanic cultures of Central Asia, Mongolia, Tibet, not to mention the traditions of Native America it also is our story, the story of how our own civilization came into being as well as of spiritual li whole. But being able to show that East and West have always been intimately interconnected, and tha has from the start been inextricably linked to the cultures of eastern Asia, is only the outermost s beauty is that when you start to observe very closely how any culture such as our own came into b shown the spiritual principles according to which all civilizations come into existence: how and w germinated, tended. You also begin to see why they eventually are allowed to fade away—and grow up inside a particular culture either rise to the occasion by working respectfully with what the end up squandering the divine seed. So on a much deeper level this is what A Story Waiting to Pierce You is really about: the fact tha even our seemingly materialistic Western world, has a sacred source and destiny. And I should em

08-10-17 20(04 from all the labor involved in sifting and understanding the historical evidence—everything experienced directly inside oneself by accessing the consciousness that brought our Western civiliz But then, on an even deeper level, one comes to a place where the book is not about anythi something we have completely forgotten in the West: that certain texts are not about anything speak straight from the reality they are describing in a way our minds, obsessed as they are with may not understand or even notice. I find it particularly interesting that the first person who realize was not a Westerner at all, but a Native American—Joseph Rael, who wrote the book’s fore was written as an incantation intended to work directly on the reader’s being. This means that as far as I am concerned, the less I say about the book, the better. But there is ju mention, which of course connects back to the book’s title. A Story Waiting to Pierce You is no there is nothing safe about reality or about the wisdom that brings us to it. Reality is not somethin or discuss, because we are reality; and we gain wisdom not through a process of accumulating through being touched and pierced by the consciousness that lies behind everything and keeps e is what gives access to the greatest privilege and delight possible for a human being: the opportun thing might sound, to participate in the cosmic process that lies behind even the birth and death of Then we can start to remember what it means to cooperate with the great ones rather than working help the waters of life to flow again in the desert of the Western world. The only problem is t forgotten the original meaning of logic or philosophy or common sense, we have forgotten ev remember. Really to re-member is not to clutter our minds with complicated facts and data but to b parts of ourselves back together into the present moment in an utter simplicity that allows us to m future—unburdened, free of regrets, leaving no trace of the past behind.  This Web site is made possible by generous grants from Copyright © 2014 Theosophical Society in Am Contact Us Sitemap Privacy https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/2380 Terms Refund Policy Search Staff Login

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