4 Reader Responses

1. Tim Boucher Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

   My interest in this subject, at this point, has to do with the evolution of Love in the Western world, and the influence people like the Troubadours had in bringing a Sufi and Bhakti vision of devotional love into human-to-human relationships:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

   However, Eros does not have to be sexual in nature. Eros can be interpreted as a love for someone who you love more than the Philia love of friendship. It can also apply to dating relationships as well as marriage. Plato refined his own definition. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. It should be noted Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction”. Plato also said Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros.

2. alistair Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 12:23 am

   for over four years i have known a woman and we have become close friends. she is 17 years younger than me and beautiful in so many ways. recently i told her of feelings that i had for her, taking the risk of rejection, and to my pleasant suprise she told me she felt the same way….though she had recently returned to her boyfriend.

   our conversation revealing our mutual feelings strengthened our care for eachother and has transcended much of the physical attraction i felt for her over the years.

   now, don`t get me wrong, she still does it for me……it`s just that the love i have for her in this form is perfect and suprises me in it`s intensity and makes me think that the physical aspect could ruin what we now share.

3. Jecklin Says:
   November 29th, 2007 at 3:35 pm

   In the circle of the body and the soul man can live by himself, but he, who gets isolated in the circle of the spirit, becomes evil. This is the immense danger of all monologue and solitary undertaking: shutting off all resistance. The hermit is only concerned with his own salvation. This is why Christianity doesn’t approve of seclusion. If somebody is not in love, doesn’t get married, doesn’t have friends or enemies, doesn’t live with others, and takes himself out of everything, then his lamp is useless, he won’t find the way.

   Whoever is able to find this operation has managed to step out of the realm of the devil. According to alchemy, this is the realization of Rebis. Lately the life activity under the aegis of divine androgen is called theandria (Solovjev). What we are talking about here is that the sign of love, the deepest passion of man, must be shifted from hermaphrodite to androgen. From the bad Two to the good Two. The picture shows a hermaphrodite between the man and the woman. The bad Two breeds devil.

   . The Church is not a religious (historical) construct and things like clerical state are nonsense. The Church is the unity of humanity, which is above state, nation, class and religion. This is how Three is also the number of freedom. The basis of freedom is the person and the basis of the person is freedom and the free person can only be realized in the Church and in the community of humanity as a whole (in the sign of Three).

   I just threw the last one in for the heck of it.

   Bela Hamvas + love + unity + eros + Church + person + Christianity + etc…

   Also, been a few yrs since I read this, but check this out:

   Through the works of late antiquity, such as the Corpus Hermeticum and medieval physicians such as Albert the Great, the doctrine of the pneuma became common discourse and was incorporated into popular culture such as the courtly love tradition. Taken by the bishop Synesius’s (d. ca. 415) synthesis of previous pneumatic doctrine and courtly love practices, Ficino develops a universal doctrine of the relation of man to the universe through Eros mediated by the Universal and Particular pneuma. While mentioning Pico della Mirandola as a sparring partner of Ficino, the main emphasis in this narrative turns to Giordano Bruno, whom Couliano believes modified and perfected this doctrine in terms of personal manipulation and excitation through the powers of Eros.

   read first review to get a taste…connects undisciplined Eros with manipulation, which contrary to the opinion that some may have it making you “free”, actually makes you a slave to yourself and others…pitiful, lustful horny unfulfilled appetite and bikini babes in advertising:

   Eros and Magic Renaissance, Couliano

   Here, too, page 190: Vico and Eros

   hope all of the linkages work right. Apologies if they don’t.

4. Julia Says:
   December 1st, 2007 at 12:59 am

   http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=5afdf21de807946db633

   Somehow I ended up on this site and found this for you. It’s got a few good nuggets in there. Apparently Pope John Paul II declared that the opposite of love is using other people, not hatred.