Plato’s Allegory of the Cave:
A comprehensive study.
The story of the Allegory can be found in the Republic book seven @514-517 and a short rendition @ 532a-d.
My first tip to anyone who wishes to study the Allegory in depth is to get different translation of the Republic, I prefer the Allan Bloom, but I use several others, particularly if I get stuck sometimes a different twist of phrase can trigger 1the brain into clearer understanding Plus, they all have very useful notes and snippets
Most commentators ignore the short rendition, but this gives us a firm and sound base from which to start. It goes like this: -
"Glaucon," I said, "isn't this at last the song itself that dialectic performs? It is in the realm of the intelligible, but it is imitated by the power of sight. We said that sight at last tries to look at the animals themselves and at stars themselves and then finally at the sun itself. So, also, when a man tries by discussion-by means of argument without the use of any of the senses-to attain to each thing itself that is and doesn't give up before he grasps by intellection itself that which is good itself, he comes to the very end of the intelligible realm just as that other man was then at the end of the visible."
"That's entirely certain," he said. Republic 532a
• The image maker his journey takes him to the end of the visible realm.
• The other man without the aid of the senses reaches the end of the intelligible realm.
This recalls the original charge that Glaucon set Socrates to show the just man leads the more divine life than the unjust man. It goes without saying the just man is the one who attains enlightenment and unjust man is the imagemaker.
Before we proceed it is important to grasp the Allegory is there to make us aware that in our societies there are image makers For example, there are a few influential authors who quote Plato without reading Plato, confidently quoting other people who equally have not read Plato. This shortcutting as unfortunately developed a myth that the beautiful city of the Republic is a totalitarian regime. Every time this false understanding arises it needs nipping in the bud. For illustration of image making Socrates builds an authoritarian state that comes into being and passes away, it is designed at Glaucon’s request to be a poisonous luxurious pig state in chronic illness that needed guardians called swineherds, (372d- 373c). i The pig state is to the approval of the enthusiastic tyrant supporter Adeimantus who’s dying wish is to join his heroes in Hades. These damaging authors are quick to lambast the regime is a failed totalitarian state but fail recognise Socrates is mimicking Adeimantus. The totalitarian state in not what Plato or Socrates are espousing they are ridiculing their rival Isocrates the father of image making These people never get to book seven (521d -522b) where Socrates also rejects this oppressive regime in favour of the true Callipolis (527c) of the just man. Historically we did not need the great experiments of Hitler and Stalin because Plato was already highlighting the consequences of totalitarian rule. In Platonism there is no
1 The original to this paper was titled the Basics of the Allegory of the Cave, however I decided to reorganise and scrap that one. 21-12-23
elitism, all citizens are equal, this includes women and children, and with equality there is no racism either. The Platonists were also vegetarians who believed it was never right to hurt anyone. Plato was an advocate of civil rights long before anyone else even thought there was something wrong with elitist societies.
Please be confident the Allegory is there to get you out of the cave and not to keep you in it, we don’t need any money either it is all free of charge.
With that off my chest, we can now get back to where we were, discussing the unjust image maker who reaches the end of the visible realm and the just man who reaches the end of the intelligible realm.
From the beginning of book 7 Socrates says the purpose of the Allegory is to examine a likeness to our education and to our want in education to the nature of the four affections of soul corresponding with the Divided Line of book 6 - Images, Belief, Knowing, and Understanding.
Therefore, the Allegory is designed to be consistent with the Divided Line, the four affections of the human soul, and the objective of the Allegory is to illustrate the correct education for the philosopher’s soul i.e. the just man
For an understanding of the soul, I have posted a separate paper on Academia that can be found on the link:https://www.academia.edu/91344843/The_Soul_in_Plato
The Divided Line analogy is explained in book six, (509d-511e) and is set out as below: -
Divided
Line Images Belief Knowing Understanding
Visible realm of created things / noumenal realm of intellect
The unjust man only reaches the end of the visible (the middle transition point). The just man by using the dialectic and without the aid of the senses goes beyond this to the end of the noumenal intelligible realm
If you are familiar with the Allegory you will know when the prisoner is released there are two movements an ascension out of the Cave and a reversion back into the Cave, this journey follows Aristotle’s tragedian rules (represented as the Freytag pyramid) where the hero reaches the climax of the drama in the middle from then on, we the audience become attached to the drama knowing the fate of the hero and our hearts reach out to save the poor fellow, “no don’t go back down there they are going to kill you”!!! ii
All the great films are based on this model, psychologically the structure reinforces our belief that it is the fools who take the plunge and return to the Cave, we see the cleaver man is the one who master’s how to stay on top, living in the Isles of the blessed. All this imagery is implanted into our
psyche by image making sophistry that creates a fear of letting go of our bonds. It is easier to sit dwelling safely in the mire of our spoon-fed lives than question the motives of our authoritarian leaders. The reasoning goes back to the fundamental purpose of the Republic in which Socrates is charged to prove that the just man leads the happier life than the unjust man who manages to maintain a life of extreme injustice that appears to the everyday Joe to be perfectly just. [361] The unjust man is the one who is going to maintain the high life of his chosen vocation and know just how to stay in the Isles of the Blessed. The unjust man who is released from the prison becomes an imagemaker who remains at the top of his game spoon feeding the prisoners, so they stay content in the darkness. Principally by keeping the other prisoners institutionalised silly as it seems they are easily pleased and don’t miss what they never had. The new guardians only allow a chosen ones to come up to the light and go through a privileged schooling of rhetorical training which perpetuates their myth making. The psychology comes from our herd instinct for survival of the fittest in the herd, conversely the fittest of our nobly educated elite are by instinctive habit deliberately making the weakest weaker still by keeping them in the dark. This is the time old way in which the tyrants deliberately oppress the weaker not allowing them their equal rights. The methods are not for survival of the fittest, but survival of the oppressor and his regime - a procedure that in practice makes everyone weaker still, primarily because in real time regimes are grossly inefficient and insist on infighting.
Attainment of the Idea of the Good
Opinion
Isles of the blessed
Visual realm
Cave of the heart
Belief Knowing
The noumenal intelligible realm
Liken this realm to the intelligible realm. visible realm.
Socrates says liken the visible realm journey to the intelligible journey and the last thing to be seen is the Idea of the Good. Once seen it must be concluded that this is in fact the cause of all that is just and beautiful, in the visible it gave birth to the king and queen of light, itself the queen of the intelligible providing truth and nous (spiritual intellect), (517b).
In book six at the beginning of the Divided Line analogy of Socrates says there is a kind of sun king of the intellect and a sun king of the visible. Symmetrically therefore each realm contains a king and queen.
If we go back to Book two (361 a-e) where Glaucon sets Socrates, the task of proving the just man lives the happier life than the unjust man.
• Of the unjust man Glaucon says he must practice a life of extreme injustice that appears perfectly just – by perfecting perfect injustice he gains the greatest reputation for being perfectly just He must keep this up for the rest of his life, if any miss deeds come to light, he can speak persuasively and if force is needed, he will be courageous and strong not to
backdown If he needs them he as friends in high places who owe him a favour, between them they can change the laws, and to boot they have money.
• Of the just man who never hurts anyone or does them harm Glaucon says “ he has such a disposition he will be whipped; he'll be racked; he'll be bound; he'll have both his eyes burned out; and, at the end, when he has undergone every sort of evil, he'll be impaled upon a pole” (stauron).
If we the take the Divided Line and turn it vertically it, becomes a pillar of cognitive development then the Allegory becomes something entirely magical which I would now like to talk through.
The beautiful city of Callipolis
The Good or the One; Ouranos or Brahman
The Just man of the Callipolis. Impaled upon the pole of dharma.
Belief
Opinion
Plato’s divided line as a pillar of consiousness and the Allegory of the Caves.
(Socrates as a great sense of humour).
Conventional interpretations generally are structured like the lecture notes of Heidegger which break the Allegory into three sections. These interpretations are woefully inadequate because they neglect to understand Socrates is using the Allegory to illustrate the philosopher’s goal - the serious business of removing the soul from the body Which looking at the chart must be the region above the head known in Tantra as Sahasrara chakra, in Plato’s Phaedrus it is the garden pastures in the plain of truth, beyond the heavens.
Heidegger’s lecture notes are invaluable as he gets to grips with some of the technical terms that Plato uses, for example Alethia: truth, which means no hiddenness the opposite is veiled.iii
Socrates says the purpose of the Allegory is to examine a likeness to our education and to our want in education, Heidegger adequately fits the script.
With the following descriptions I am condensing the story down in the way Heidegger breaks it into the same series of three sections and adding for fun a few embellishments: -
1) The first stage [514-515c] is the introduction, were Socrates asks us to imagine our lives as stiff-necked prisoners chained to the floor of a cave even our heads are restrained so that we are unable to comprehend anything other than shadows directly projected onto the cave walls in front of us. Unbeknown there is group of puppeteers who carry props and behind them is great fire which gives the light for the puppeteers to cast the shadows we interpretate. The point Socrates is making is that us every day folks are blinkered and do not understand how the automotive rhetoric of our educationalist, politicians, and religions are manipulating our subconscious to manacle us to the rock of the cave. iv
(In Tantra the location is Muladhara chakra with the fire of kundalini burning behind).
2) The second stage [515c-515e] is a liberation, one of the prisoners is unchained and dragged up passed the fire and props which after all this time in the dark the light hurts and strains his eyes, but he is compelled to recognise the props are the cause of his false understanding. This prisoner becomes afraid as his whole life as just collapsed into bits and instantly want to return to the safety of his former spoon-fed life. Obviously, the poor fellow as lead a sheltered life and now needs to pull himself together and be happy with his new prospects.
(In Tantra this yo-yo effect of indecisions is the journey to the happy life of Svadhisthana chakra).
3) The third stage, [515e-516e] rather than being allowed back the prisoner is forcibly dragged into the outside world where the Sun is so intense that he can only see at night and make out the stars under the heavenly dome, then gradually he becomes more confident and realise the Sun controls seasons, time, and creation. You will agree he as now gained a superior understanding which his fellow prisoners have not, excited by this he thinks it would be worthwhile to go back into the cave and explain to them what the upper regions are like. We told him “no don’t go back down there they are going to kill you”!!! But unfortunately, he is naive when he returns, he finds there is a group of prisoners who earn prestigious rewards and honours for the best interpretations of the shadows, and our dissident is now causing unrest telling everyone they are merely images of something which is far superior. He meets resistance from the interpreters of stone who ridicule him, it is a double jeopardy scenario he cannot explain the truth because the language and vocabulary are inadequate, and they have a mental block because they have no experience of the truth. However, they react in accordance with their basic instinctive needs for survival and to
preserve the laws they seek to silence the heretic who is upsetting their political or religious beliefs, and they are even willing to resort to execution perhaps even by stoning him to death, (517a). Ironically and tragically, we can all see it is farcical they are defending nothing but shadows of illusion.
(The return is going down to Hades – In Tantra the aggressive behaviour is characteristic of Manipura chakra city of jewels).
The soul is made of three parts, worker, ruler, and guardian consistently because everything is symmetrical they are recognisable.
Heidegger’s three sections fall far below the bar, we only get as high as the third heaven (Hades), if we are going to perfect the art of philosophy and remove the soul from the body, we are not even halfway it is total tragedy From the chart any fool including Adeimantus can see tyranny is tragedy. Tragically, Heidegger was from the Aristotelian/Isocratic mindset which means because of his fixed belief he does not appreciate the philosopher’s goal of removing the soul from the body or the importance of why the prisoner returns voluntary to the Cave of Hades His explanation like his iconic religious leader v and the infamous tyrant he supported only takes you to the third heavenHades.
Heidegger also misses the following important statement: Socrates adds “don’t you think this man looks ridiculous and with his sight still deficient and unaccustomed to the darkness of surroundings he will be forced into contesting in the courts and the like with men who have never seen justice itself”. [517d] Socrates is pointed out the justice systems are a sham because they have been established by unjust constitutions to oppose true justice. Unbeknown to even our present day judges our Western legal systems inherited from the Romans support the Isocratic ideology of rhetorical image making.vi Law is only legal opinion; it bears no truth, a barrister present an illusion to truth. Once you understand philosophy it is impossible for legal justice to be truth.
For information on this I produced a paper for Academia on political evils. https://www.academia.edu/101908609/The_Art_of_Holbein_and_Seneca_on_Political_Evils
Why does the prisoner return voluntary to the Cave?
As stated at the beginning the purpose of the allegory is to study our education and want of education on the important business of philosophy
The unchained prisoner who is taken out of the cave although he finds it hard to adjust to the realm of the sun has in fact been given a privilege education superior to those still in the cave. The unjust man now believes he is living the happy life in “the isles of the blessed” and wishes to stay there, 519c. We can see from the chart he is delusional, so can the just man who returns voluntary to the cave.
Socrates explains there are two movements, when the prisoner is dragged out of the Cave his eyes are blinded by the light, and when he returns his eyes are strained by the darkness. [518a]
Socrates is explaining to Glaucon that the two movements represent two types of soul. He deems the soul happy which returns from the Sun back to the Cave and pity’s the soul which is dazzled by the brightness of the Sun and remains to take all the coveted accolades in the Isles of the blessed.
Still analysing 518, the prisoner is a member of the elite chosen ones, the dragging of the prisoner out of the Cave and compelling him to look at the way the puppeteers use the props is our educational training in rhetoric and the arts of humanities that promises to take us to the high echelons of prestigious honours, hence our educational guardians claim they are putting sight into blind eyes preparing the fittest for vocations which entice their senses for attainment of ever greater ambitions, proudful rewards, all the pomp, and honours that go with the prestige of showmanship.
Socrates is saying that our educational training in gymnastics and liberal arts vii drags us up from the Cave and promises that from now on we will be “living the virtuous life of the blessed”. Through habit, instruction, training, and even punishment, particularly corporal punishment our education in Liberal arts and Gymnastics introduces a virtue in which our souls are dazzled by the potential rewards, honours, status, and ambitions which reinforces the need for, political honours, medals, trophies, fashioning peer aspirations, role models for grandeur, luxury, wealth, greed, and humble pious religious virtue. Throughout our up bringing these aspirations have been subtly moulded into our psyche thus we become prisoners of the system, naturally through our competitive spirit we become envious of others living the luxurious life [our aspiring role models] and wish to emulate them, this entraps us all, which perpetuates the cycle of universal suffering. The promised life of Hades bonds the soul to the body for perpetual birth-life-death.
For the elite guardians of the city Socrates introduces an education programme in gymnastics (physical pursuits), and music mousike -the liberal art of humanities -the nine muses. Interestingly there are some very notable authors who have failed to recognise the educational programme is all to the approval of Adeimantus who is in the tyrant business. Because the legislation is to the approval of Adeimantus it is for an unjust tyrannical state which is why Socrates abruptly dismisses the educational programmes. Gymnastics because the pursuits preside overcoming into being and passing away and the liberal arts are illiberal and banal (521c-522b). He replaces them with his five liberating mathematical studies of the dialectic which turns us around from becoming to eternal real Being - the straight path to the Idea of the Good, he says - these are the studies of the true philosopher.
The first movement is our sophist education, training, and instruction, the prisoner as part of his education is forced to look at the props of the puppeteers to see how rhetoric is used for illusion and deception of truth and how everyday people will believe the unjust man’s rhetoric. A deceptive person who can grasp how to use these rhetorical images for personal gain is dazzled by the brilliance of their good fortune, the promise of, living in the Isles of the blessed. This takes us back to the rhetorical arguments of Adeimantus in book 2 [362e-367e]. Adeimantus holding the opinion of the unjust man who believes that a divine life is promised for a man who can perfect injustice so perfect that it appears perfectly just he will then gain the greatest reputation amongst the politicus for being perfectly justice, he will gain greater rewards, the MAGA mob will respect and admire him and wish to emulate him. (We see carved in stone littering our cities their triumphal tributes and now the counterculture is pulling them down, but they must be left as reminders, we must never forget we have inherited the repercussions of their oppressive lies, removing them covers over truth with more lies, we must learn not to fear of them, leave them and teach by example that we are the gullible fools that allowed them their freedom) Adeimantus who fits the traits of these old tyrants believes when he and his type finally succumb to death, they will go to Hades, be rewarded with luxurious free board and lodgings to live like gods in eternal drunken repose. The long monologue which Adeimantus delivers contains many elements that are very similar to the rhetoric of Isocrates the rival of Socrates and Plato, the educator of tyrants who formed the first school of rhetoric and humanities. Our Western political, social, and religious models followed his doctoring which was
designed for the education of the elite class at the expense of the everyday people. The just man of Adeimantus can only get away with it if he keeps everyone in the dark, therefore there as always been an historical human rights struggle against the greed of an elite few oppressors skilled in rhetorical persuasion. (Herd mentality).
Throughout the Socratic dialogues Plato is illustrating how the rhetoric of the sophists is veiling us from the truth, they are trained to manipulate the argument and plaster over truth, therefore their actions are a deceptive lie which he calls the “noble lie” and whenever in the politicus there is a dissident spreading this disease everyday people are usually cured with the medicine of lies cures.(414b) Socrates adds when the sophist do not succeed with rhetoric, they will resort to corporal punishment and violence. (492a). To put this into blunt perspective these people are so indoctrinated they believe we are like cabbages that grow from the land, therefore we are their personal possessions, and they cannot be unjust to something they own. Socrates is showing us they do not own your intellect.
Socrates is arguing the just man is the one who returns to the Cave voluntarily, he sees illusions of sophistry, the props of the puppeteers and how they psychologically manipulate and not only keep our souls in the Cave of illusion, but the practice makes a prisoner of their own soul, as the rulers they want to remain at the mouth of the Cave in the Isles of the Blessed. Whilst they keep everyone else from seeking the truth they too are chained in fixed belief at the top of the mouth. Eventually because of their belief in rhetorical persuasion they will fall from their perch and will by compulsion be sent to Hades - it is compulsory
In the following quote from Phaedo you can see there are two types of people who arrive in Hades, the dead for which it is compulsory and the purified soul of the philosopher
Probably those men who established the mysteries were not un- enlightened, but in reality, had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes un- initiated and unsanctified to Hades will lie in the mire, but he who arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the Theon. For as they say in the mysteries, the thyrsus-bearers are many, but the mystics [βάκχοι Bacchoi] are few'; and these are, I believe, those who have been true philosophers. Socrates Phaedo 69c
The difference between Adeimantus (Isocrates) and Socrates: -
Adeimantus because of his trust in the luxurious benefits of the education in gymnastics and the liberal arts, the desire it creates for honours and loyalty makes the soul a prisoner to the body. The promised potential rewards of an elite education in gymnastics liberal arts entrap the soul into the world of becoming and decay, (521e) When Adeimantus goes to Hades through the compulsory death his soul has been entrapped with the body which the sophists argue is a divine partnership, i.e., they believe what goes out of a man defiles him but in truth when the soul rids itself of the body it deifies the philosopher king.
Without returning voluntary to the cave the greatest study the Idea of the Good, [see 505a] cannot proceed. The return is termed going down to Hades. For those who arrive voluntary Hades is a great benefactor, and his chains will not bind the soul of the philosopher Cratylus 403e. In likeness to the visible realm the soul passes through the Cave wall into the noumenal intelligible realm. When the philosopher turns his soul from the darkness of the day to an assent to true light Socrates calls this true philosophy.
Socrates says to Glaucon “do you now wish to consider how such men will come into being and how one will lead them up to the light just as some are said to have gone from Hades to the heavens” viii
“How can I not he replies.” Republic 521c
Socrates says of the just man: -
“From all this he will be able to draw a conclusion and choose-in looking off toward the nature of the soul-between the worse and the better life, calling worse the one that leads it toward becoming more unjust, and better the one that leads it to becoming just. He will let everything else go. For we have seen that this is the most important choice for him in life and death. He must go to Hades adamantly holding to this opinion so that he won't be daunted by wealth and such evils there, and rush into tyrannies and other such deeds by which he would work many irreparable evils, and himself undergo still greater suffering; but rather he will know how always to choose the life between such extremes and flee the excesses in either direction in this life, so far as is possible, for in this way a human being will be the happiest. Republic 618d-e.
Notice Socrates says the philosopher will choose the middle way between the two extremes and flee these excesses. Because he drops the studies of gymnastics and the muses, we can hypothesis perhaps theses are the two excesses and there is a middle way.
He also says Hades is a perfect sophist: -
So let's say that it is for these reasons, Hermogenes, that hitherto no one has wished to come back here from there. The words Hades knows how to speak are so beautiful, it seems, that everyone even the Sirens-has been overcome by his enchantments. On this account, therefore, this god is a perfect sophist, and a great benefactor to those who are with him. So great is the wealth that surrounds him there below, indeed, that he even sends many good things to us from it. This is how he got the name 'Pluto'. On the other hand, because he is unwilling to associate with human beings while they have their bodies, but converses with them only when their souls are purified of all the desires and evils of the body, doesn't he seem to you to be a philosopher? For hasn't he well understood that when people are free of their bodies he can bind them with the desire for virtue, but that while they feel the agitation and madness of the body not even the famous shackles of his father Cronos could keep them with him? Cratylus 403e.
Going down to Hades is the same scenario as when Socrates takes the hemlock in the Phaedo which is a metaphor for an overdose in the poison of luxury. Indeed, there are many similarities in the Phaedo to the Katha Upanishad where Nachiketa goes to the abode of Yama - the lord of death because Nachiketa arrives voluntary Yama must treat him as a guest, but Yama too is a perfect sophist and tries to deceive Nachiketa, but Nachiketa does not fall for his tricks and finally Yama must show him the way to immortality in Brahman. (Brahman is the same absolute concept as the Platonic One or the Good).
With this information we can understand the following: -
"Isn't it also the same with the good? Unless a man is able to separate out the Idea of the good from all other things and distinguish it in the argument, and, going through every test, as it were in battleeager to meet the test of being rather than that of opinion-he comes through all this with the argument still on its feet; you will deny that such a man knows the good itself, or any other good? And if he somehow lays hold of some phantom of it, you will say that he does so by opinion and not knowledge, and that, taken in by dreams and slumbering out his present life, never waking in this world until he goes to Hades and profoundly falls asleep there?" Republic 534c
Slumbering and dreaming and the profound sleep is a humorous pun on stiff necked yoga meditation.
The neophyte like Nachiketa when he defeats Hades does not precisely know what the Idea of the Good - is, through his belief he must keep his mind fixed on what it is not and not give way temptations. The aggression the prisoner found returning to the Cave symbolises on one level an internal struggle holding on to the Idea of the Good, and not giving way to the temptation and accepting gifts of Earthly wealth, like Buddha fought Mara (On another level outside the scope of this exercise it is metaphor for lifting the pranas, but see the paper titled the soul in Plato).Our prisoner who recognises the props of the puppeteers as methods of deception is the one going down to Hades purified from attachment to earthy passions and desires this allows him with his metaphorical sword to challenge Hades, who represents both material wealth and intelligible wealth as in the Phaedo: -
In fact a purification from all these things, and self. restraint and justice and courage and wisdom itself are a kind of purification. And I fancy that those men who established the mysteries were not unenlightened, but in reality, had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes uninitiated and unsanctified to Hades will lie in the mire, but he who arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the gods. Phaedo 69c.
The opening comparison with the unjust man at the end of the visible and the just man at the end of the intelligible is followed by this statement: -
"Then," I said, "the release from the bonds and the turning around from the shadows to the phantoms and the light, the way up from the cave to the sun; and, once there, the persisting inability to look at the animals and the plants and the sun's light, and looking instead at the divine appearances in water and at shadows of the things that really are, rather than as before at shadows of phantoms cast by a light that, when judged in comparison with the sun, also has the quality of a shadow of a phantom,-all this activity of the arts, which we went through,[Socrates as just described the liberating dialectic studies of real Being] has the power to release and leads what is best in the soul up to the contemplation of what is best in the things that are,- just as previously what is clearest in the body was led to the contemplation of what is brightest in the region of the bodily and the visible." Republic 532b-d
The Cave journey of birth, life, and death is a body journey, superimposed with a soul in the visible realm. Going down to Hades and passing the tests of Hades releases the soul from the body so that it can travel to the intelligible realm leaving the body behind: this is the philosopher’s goal to remove the soul from the body [Phaedo 67d]. Full attainment of liberation.
The intelligible place is Saturn or Cronos, the highest and purest intellect [Cratylus 396b]
The intelligible place in the Republic is ποητον, the province of intellect [nous] and ιοπον, place or sphere. In the Phaedrus this the vault of heaven Ύπουράνιον meaning under heaven or under the sky and τόπος place[247b] the place of Ideas, referring to Plato’s forms This intelligible sphere contains a vault this is the cave of heaven, what this means is the inside of the cranium and the vault is the fontanel. ix The Phaedrus is the only dialogue where Socrates ventures outside the city walls free of the stoa. He finds his friend Phaedrus and he reflects on the myth of the charioteer who reaches the vault of heaven or sub-celestial arch where a mystical circumvolution takes place, which carries the charioteer through the vault into a zone of forms - absolute justice, temperance, and true
knowledge i.e., not that liberal art stuff but the knowledge of real Being – which is called by the mystics “epopteia” (beholding the Ideas). The soul is now liberated from the body.
The intelligible place is an arch of a cave above the heavens i.e. Cronus the purest intellect is just inside the cranium. In Tantra this Soma chakra the nectar chakra, sometimes called the cave of the bumble bee.
Plato describes the exit out of the Cave [of the Heart] in the myth of Er [Republic 614b] when the people pass through the Cave wall above them is the wheel of the fates comparable to the Phaedrus [248+] only the man who studies philosophy like the successful charioteer can grasp the Idea of the Good and circumnavigate through the vault of the arch of heaven.
A philosophy which maintains withdrawal of the senses, turning away from materialism, and the concept of the unknowable absolute (The One) all indicate this is the practice of yoga meditation the prisoners are yogis trying to open the mouth of kundalini in the pit of Muladhara. With the information we have it can be compared in likeness to the Tantric Chakras, each philosophy makes the other more understandable.
At the beginning of the Allegory, you can picture the image of the “stiff necks” sat in rows all meditating, symbolically they are prisoners until one of them realises the fire of kundalini is an illusion and how tickling her under the chin with Socrates humour makes her suddenly open the door.
If you can master the yoga meditation the soul moves into the intelligible realm as Socrates confirmed earlier: -
Glaucon," I said, "isn't this at last the song itself that dialectic performs? It is in the realm of the intelligible, but it is imitated by the power of sight. We said that sight at last tries to look at the animals themselves and at stars themselves and then finally at the sun itself. So, also, when a man tries by discussion-by means of argument without the use of any of the senses-to attain to each thing itself that “IS” and doesn't give up before he grasps by intellection [nous] itself that which is Good itself, he comes to the very end of the intelligible realm just as that other man was then at the end of the visible.” Republic 532a.
The sequence of events in the intelligible realm after exiting the Cave of the heart, the liberated soul now a charioteer beholds the Idea of the Good. He then enters the Cave of the arch of heaven, which a ouroboros circumvolution revolution carries the charioteer into the mystical union with the One or the Good which is known as the Bacchic “ecstatis” liberation of Dionysus - a standing outside of your self with the divine intelligence, this is “truth” – through the divine motion of the universe, all is unveiled [Cratylus 421b] the truth will set you free. This is the purpose of a wisdom education.
The Platonist are Bacchic, and the god of liberation is Dionysus, in Hinduism I read him as Atman he who perceives himself This is the just man who returned voluntary. x
The Divided Line is the staff of dharma effectively a pillar of conscious development, with the chakras lined on the spinal cord. This path takes us in stages to the mystical union. “The thyrsus bearers are many, but the mystics are few and these mystics [Bacchic] are I believe are those who have been true philosophers”. Socrates Phaedo 69c.
It is often proposed that the seed head of the thyrsus represents the pinnal gland, which fits for an analogy of the pilot of the soul.
The finale.
The mechanics of Platonism are Egyptian Chaldean in origin and can now be related to Tantra philosophy to show there is an unequivocal togetherness.
Socrates said the just man “will know how always to choose the life between such extremes and flee the excesses in either direction in this life, so far as is possible, for in this way a human being will be the happiest” The excesses – the extremes in either direction are the two studies gymnastics and music, and the middle way is the staff of dharma, the pole between two others. xi
Music - mousiki - μουσική - this includes any art over which the Muses presided therefore the liberal art of humanities, including writing and skills in letters The letters in Greek are στοιχεια stoikheia, units, which includes all the letters of the alphabet and the physical elements. Everything in creation is nameable therefore letters represent the physical - all the things – the beings, which before the muses had no physical appearance. The first muse is the stuff from which all the muses are composed. For everything that is created there must be a cause.
Gymnastics gymnastiki γυμναστικός, exercises in physical education, physical pursuits, or pursuits of the physical, therefore pleasure seeking for satiating the body.
The Allegory of the Cave
Sahasrara Chakra The King of light
The Good or the One; Ouranos or Brahman
The Just man impaled upon a pole. Republic 362a
Notice on the chart how the movement of the paired Ida and Pingal nadi, they are sweeping from left to right and back again dancing around the maypole of Sushumna nadi the middle way between the two.
The nadi are conduits which our vital life force energy is transported - the soul is life force. Socrates says the antistrophe to the muses is gymnastics, where the term antistrophe ἀντίστροφος is where the dancing partners turned to face one another in a correlative, coordinated dance moving from left to right, corresponding with the previous movement right to left. xii
The soul in Plato is life force and is made of three parts worker, guardian, and ruler, which when they do their proper jobs leads to justice. These three are correspondingly Ida, Pingal, and Sushmna which when they do their proper jobs leads to samadhi or moksha – the brilliant light of Being.
On the fall into creation Socrates calls them respectively multiheaded beast - ape lion - little man 588b. Socratic justice is when everyone does their proper jobs, ie the multiheaded beast must stop making and ape out of the lion and making the little man weaker.
The mechanics of how the three nadi operate is similar to quantum mechanics: Ida is the mind aspect and Pingal is primal matter which Timaeus calls – such like a moulding stuff.
Both Ida and Pingal (left and right hemispheres of the brain) they start and terminate at Ajna chakra, the duality chakra at this stage there is just pure mind (thought) and fuzzy primal matter (such like).
Creation begins at Ajna where the Ida consciousness is doing the work of observing and interpreting the primal matter - making sense of it Gradually these two vital energies fall cascading down in tandem evolving creation in the dance of the antistrophe. When they hit the rock bottom of Muladhara chakra the senses have fully evolved to interpretate the physical manifested matter of our creation. At the same time, Ida causes the consciousness of man to sink down the Sushumna. The three parts of the soul are now fully immersed in body (baptised).
The Ida is of course the study of physical pursuits a gymnastic education – studying the elements is a physical pursuit kin to pleasure seeking desires for physical sensation, musing over the elements the labours of the arts satiate the ego of Ida.
Pingal the materialism which our senses on Ida desire corresponds with the studies of the muses, we muse over these pleasures. The muses are inspiring the senses of Ida to pursue more sensations they evolve from primal matter into beingness But the primal matter really does not change it is the senses that are measuring it and making the evolved sense, resulting in the creation. The primal matter (the elements) is always in a state of flux the moulding stuff is fuzzy it does not hold together which is why there is birth, life, and death. Which is why the tyrant, and his tyrannical regime will always fail the moulding stuff is an image of reality that is falling apart
Ida causes the everyday consciousness of man to travel down the Sushumna but the nous – our unawaken divine supreme consciousness lies dormant behind the mouth or door of kundalini The Sushumna stems from Cronus the pure intellect and the conduit allows the supreme intellect nous to rejoin Cronus.
This lower created realm of Muladhara is carnal Aphroditie with fallen Hephaestus, Prakriti bonds Purusha, Shakti bonds Shiva
Our way out of the cave of Muladhara is to open the door of Sushumna, this can only be done when the Ida and Pingal are regulated and balanced, this is why Socrates dismisses the two studies because they are the cause of the illusions.
and himself undergo still greater suffering; but rather he will know how always to choose the life between such extremes and flee the excesses in either direction in this life, so far as is possible, for in this way the Idea of man (human being) will be the happiest.
Ida and Pingal are the two extremes, drawing the consciousness of man down into beingness – our created world away from the divine realm of Cronus (Soma - the nectar of immortality).
When they are balanced equally the doorway of Sushumna opens. If we seek her manifested aspects through material pleasures kundalini gives bondage, when we seek her unmanifested aspect she brings liberation – salvation from suffering.
The yogi in meditation is going to revert the creation process - refining - on the Ida the sense information is dismissed, on the Pingal the Ida now purifies the elements like Apollo leading the muses back with just one muse the Idea of the Good The ruler the awakened nous ascends the Sushumna to Cronus.
You can see clearly why Socrates uses in the Phaedrus the analogy of a charioteer and two horses girdled to the axis of a pole.
Cronus the pure clarity of intellect, this is the Idea of the Good, the beautiful Aphrodite in her divine form Cronus is a union of Zeus (nous), Cronus, and Rhea, three make one – the Idea of the GoodAphrodite.
From the sense interpretations of the elements, we develop language, the alphabet, religious, political, and vocational beliefs. The senses are measuring instruments, from the sensations we interpretate analogies, something is hot- that might be a warm good sensation, or glowing red, or a burning sensation, which in turn we relate to another experience and language evolves using a myriad of these ratios put into words.
Socrates drops the studies because they focus the intellect downward. On the Pingal the study is replaced with just one simple muses, the Idea of the Good. On the Ida is the mathematical studies of real Being, (522c-530e) no longer focusing on the interpretation the evolving matter, but the real Being.
This comprehensive study is so far out it is easy to see why the just man who volunteers to go back to the cave and explain nobody believes him.
Notes
i Luxury is poisonous the state is a poisonous pig state.
ii The going down to Hades and being confronted with violence is represented in the Gospel of John Chapters 7-10.
Like the prisoner of the Republic 516e Jesus also takes up his old seat chapter 8; 2.
iii Bloomsbury publication of his lecture notes
iv In most case because of the lack of philosophical education the authorities do not even realise they are institutionalising us.
v I don’t mean Jesus.
vi Isocrates the father of rhetoric and liberal arts who Socrates opposes.
vii The education for the guardians in the Republic is called gymnastics and music (mousike).
ix John 11 Jesus lifts Lazarus from Hades. Triumph over tragedy they have crossed the Divided Line into the heavens. In John 19 this is Gabbatha of Golgotha the judgment at the dome of the skull. Gabbatha is a crazed pavement, but also a dome. Golgotha means the skull.
x In John this is the one he loves who abides John 21; 22.
xi John 19; 18 They crucified him on a pole [stauron] between two others.
xii I kid you not, see notes Book 7 note 9 of the Bloom translation page 465. Maypole dancing Eh.