This is a full reading of a little known work entitled 'On the Wanderings of Ulysses' by the 18th and 19th-century Platonist philosopher Thomas Taylor (1823). It gives a detailed account of the 'mystical and occult' meanings Homer's mythical epic, a poem which the Platonists of Late Antiquity understood to be an allegory of the intellectual soul's journey back to the One. You may be familiar with the lecture by Manly P. Hall, 'Porphyry On the Wanderings of Ulysses' from his lecture series on Neoplatonism, but few are aware of the extent to which Hall was influenced by Thomas Taylor's work, and in particular this text, which only appears in an appendix for the volume 'Select works of Porphyry; containing his four books On abstinence from animal food; his treatise On the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his Auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible natures.'
Full text freely available here:
Artwork:
Odysseus - Alexander Rothaug
Ulysses with Calypso - Maurice Denis
#audiobook #audiobooks #odyssey #odysseus #homer #occult #esotericism #esoteric #platonism #neoplatonism #history #philosophy #literature #thomastaylor
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