Foundations of Esoteric Philosophy

Almost every Western esoteric system rests on a Greek philosophical foundation: the Pythagorean harmony of number, Plato’s ascent of the soul toward the Good, and the Neoplatonic hierarchy of emanations that descends from the One.

This reading room gathers those foundations, including Plato’s dialogues, the Golden Verses and the Life of Pythagoras, and Iamblichus on theurgy, together with Thomas Taylor’s translations, which introduced the Neoplatonists to the Romantic and occult readers of the nineteenth century.

Many later esoteric movements claimed descent from Pythagoras, Plato and the Neoplatonists, and this shelf lets you check those claims against the sources. Begin with a dialogue of Plato or the Pythagorean Golden Verses, then Iamblichus and Proclus in Thomas Taylor’s translations, which were themselves a major influence on Romantic and occult readers. Taylor’s English is dated and his notes partisan, but his versions are part of the history. The ideas gathered here, the One, the world-soul, ascent through contemplation and the harmony of number, reappear throughout the rest of the archive.