In his commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, Proclus explains the basic requirements for both students and teachers of divine mysteries. While he’s speaking specifically in terms of the Platonic-Pythagorean tradition, I’d suggest that something akin to these considerations will form part of any healthy religious or spiritual tradition. And I would further suggest that these lessons can be very challenging for us modern westerners, given how much they’re at odds with prevailing notions in our society.
At any rate, here’s Proclus:
Our candidate, then, as we have said, must possess such natural ability as this. Next, as has been said, he must possess experience of many and various disciplines, by means of which he may be raised to an understanding of things intelligible. And, thirdly, he must have such intense enthusiasm towards this study that, when his instructor gives only a hint, he may be capable of following such hints by virtue of an enthusiasm which concentrates his attention.
There are three things, then, which he [=Plato] says are required by anyone embarking on the study of intelligible nature—natural ability, experience, and enthusiasm. Natural ability will naturally endow him with faith in the divine, experience will enable him to hold fast to the truth of paradoxical doctrines, and his enthusiasm will stir up in him a love of this study, that in this sphere of activity also there may be Faith, Truth, and Love, those three qualities that save souls through the natural suitability which joins one to them. […]
As for the teacher, having journeyed long before along the same path, he will not want to expound the divine truth with elaborate verbosity, but rather reveal much through few words, uttering words of like nature to the concepts they express; nor will he proceed from widely acknowledged and obvious concepts, but will contemplate reality from above, from the most unitary principles, taking a remote point of departure for his systematic treatment, inasmuch as he has separated himself from his immediate surroundings and drawn closer to the divine; nor will he take thought so that he may seem to speak clearly, but he will content himself with indications; for one should convey mystical truths mystically, and not publicise secret doctrines about the Gods. Such should be the nature of both the auditor and the purveyor of such discourses.
One may take Parmenides as an ideal example of such an instructor, whence one will be able to gather the manner in which he will deliver his discourses, namely that he will convey much in a small compass, that he will proceed from the top down, and that he will discourse only in hints about the divine. As for the pupil [=young Socrates], he will be naturally apt and of an erotic nature, but not yet fully experienced, for this reason it is that Parmenides urges him to become practised in dialectic, that he may gain experience of technical argumentation. He welcomes his natural ability and enthusiasm, and adds to that the bringing up to par of what is deficient. The object of this triple excellence he has stated himself, being proof against deception in argument about the divine. For he who is deficient in any of these respects will be compelled to agree to many false propositions, if he enters naively upon the contemplation of reality.
Proclus, Commentary of Plato’s Parmenides (col. 927-928 Cousin); trans. Morrow & Dillon.
So, on the student’s side, we need an appropriate nature, experience, and enthusiasm, leading to faith, truth, and love for the Gods and their holy mysteries. Again, these same virtues of faith, truth, and love must be found in the teacher, who will be confident that in his saying little, who will be grounded in the Gods and not in false or impious things of the wider culture, and who will delight in mystical indications.
Again, while the exact details of phrasing and emphasis will vary, I’d suggest that something recognizably akin to these prerequisites, for teachers and for students, will form part of any healthy spiritual or initiatory tradition.
I’m especially intrigued by the description of how the teacher can remedy certain defects in the student, but (at least by implication) not others. If the core foundations are there—faith in the Gods, and a love for the study of divine things (i.e., “natural ability” and “enthusiasm”, as defined here)—then the teacher can provide the additional experiences that such a student needs, in order get the rest of the way.
But by the time we’re adults (as even young Socrates is here), there’s not much the teacher can do to remedy the other two pillars. A student who lacks the appropriate faith and love for the Gods may, in some pretty strong sense, be past the point of help. Those basic foundations really need to be laid in childhood, as our basic character is being formed. This partly due to our own receptivity at that early stage of life, and partly the ability of parents and the teachers of youth to work with that receptivity.
This is in keeping with an earlier Platonist teacher, Sallustius, writing in the opening lines of his treatise On the Gods and the World:
It is requisite that those who are willing to hear concerning the Gods should have been well informed from their childhood, and not nourished with foolish opinions. It is likewise necessary that they should be prudent and good, that they may receive, and properly understand, the discourses which they hear.
To be sure, none of us is perfect. There’s always room for us to deepen our faith and love for the Holy Powers. But some foundation in these virtues has to be there, in order to be ready for any discussion about the Gods. And it almost certainly needs to have started—in however imperfect and incomplete a way—very early in life.
On the other side, for those in teaching capacities (however formal or informal), we absolutely must be mindful about when, and with whom it is ever appropriate to discuss holy things. When our hearers lack these basic dispositions of faith and love for the Gods, the only appropriate choice is to keep our silence.
I’m not sure how, if at all, we can help or encourage those who lack even the basic foundations. But insofar as offering “more experience” would simply be to profane the Mysteries, that can’t possibly be the right course.
I’d welcome any suggestions here, dear readers.
barefootwisdom 