Damiani’s Integral Vision: A Compendium of Entry Points into the Archive
Anthony Damiani’s vision of philosophy is inspiring: deep, broad, and complex. Not only did he explain difficult concepts in words, he used symbolical diagrams to indicate what couldn’t be said in words. Moreover, he sought to relate the points of view of many different thinkers, mystics, philosophers, and spiritual traditions and show how they complemented rather than contradicted each other. Here we want to indicate some of the traditions, schools, and philosophies that he engaged with, amplified, drew upon, and synthesized in both classes and diagrams. But first we must say more about the central symbol that he used to connect astrology and philosophy.
The Astrological Mandala and Astrology’s Transcendental Ground
Damiani was a self-taught philosopher and metaphysician. He didn’t have any allegiance to particular thinkers or spiritual traditions. Rather he believed that the Truth was so complex and all-encompassing that any approach to it apart from directly entering thought-free contemplation required seeing it from as many perspectives as possible and seeing how these perspectives were related in various ways. Thus he also sought a symbol that would enable and encourage a synthetic approach to philosophical problems. He found this symbol to be on the one hand, the universe itself, especially as represented in the Ptolemaic perspective, which privileges a human, Earth-centered view of the universe, and on the other, the astrological mandala, in which a circle is divided into twelve equal sectors (houses), each ruled by one of the twelve signs of the zodiac and containing just those planets that are in dignity in that house. Each house represents a Divine Idea (substance) and the planets in that house represent the functions that manifest the Idea. On the outside of the circle are keywords indicating the meaning of each house in terms of its Divine Idea.
[insert Astro_fig__12.png, metaphysical chart, here]
The metaphysical chart. (Reproduced courtesy of Wisdom’s Goldenrod. From Anthony Damiani, Astronoesis: Philosophy’s Empirical Context, Astrology’s Transcendental Ground, fig. 12, p. 53.)
If you are not familiar with the glyphs for the planets and zodiacal signs, here is a useful key.
[insert key figure, Astrological_Glyph_Key_ChaldeanVsTransSaturnian.png here]
For a more detailed description of the components of the astrological mandala, also called the “metaphysical chart” in various class transcripts, and the concept of the four essential dignities in astrology, go here. Link to about the metaphysical chart.docx
Discovering the Astrological Mandala
The story of how Damiani discovered the astrological mandala is itself interesting. In 1982, he remarked during a class that he first became preoccupied with the “idea of astrology, all the implications in astrology” when there was a Uranus-Pluto conjunction transiting conjunct his natal Mercury at 17 degrees Virgo. This was in 1964–65. And interestingly, the Isidore Kozminsky symbol for 17 degrees Virgo is “an astrologer seated at a desk, his head resting on his left hand, judging a nativity”! When he opened the American Brahman Bookstore in Ithaca, NY, a few years later (the summer of 1967), he encouraged two of the initial visitors, Lenny Silver, a professor of mathematics at Cornell University, and Timothy Smith, an undergraduate at Cornell, to learn to cast horoscopes and learn about astrology. The bookstore had some books about astrology, including the complete lecture notes of Marc Edmund Jones and a few books by Alan Leo, which they devoured. Eventually, they began offering classes on astrology at the bookstore, which attracted many more people, both from Cornell and the surrounding city.
Meanwhile Damiani continued his own study of astrology. After he began teaching classes drawing on the writings of PB, Carl Jung, Buddhism, Samkhya, Advaita Vedanta, and Theosophy in the evenings at the bookstore, he would sometimes put up the chart of a student on the blackboard and discuss the way the chart represented the structure of their ego. Moreover the transits of planets to the natal chart showed how this structure was being transformed by life experience—for example, it was being educated, developed, refined, or purified. He increasingly found that understanding astrology provided valuable insights into people’s character, and more importantly, into the soul’s purpose in living this human life.
But he was still in search of a deeper meaning to the astrological horoscope. It wasn’t until the summer of 1972 that he had a “eureka moment” that revealed the truly metaphysical significance of the twelve signs of the zodiac. This powerful intuition-vision was provoked by his reading of an article by T. Subba Row, a theosophist, titled “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac.” T. S. Row used certain hermeneutical and numerological techniques practiced by Sanskrit scholars to unfold the meanings of the Sanskrit names for the twelve signs of the zodiac. The result was a revelation of a metaphysical structure stretching from the Self-Existent Brahman (Aries) to the five elements that constitute the appearance of the universe (Pisces). This was the key Damiani had been looking for. Now he was able to map on to the twelve signs of the zodiac corresponding principles from other traditions: Plotinus, Advaita Vedanta, Samkhya, Kashmir Shaivism, Proclus, Tibetan Buddhism, Jung.
When the Hellenistic astrological schema in which certain planets are said to be in dignity when residing in certain zodiacal signs (rulerships, exaltations, detriments, and falls) is combined with T. S. Row’s meanings for the signs, a comprehensive symbol emerges—the astrological mandala.
Damiani didn’t regard the astrological mandala as merely a product of conceptual speculation. Rather, in a paper, coauthored with Tim Smith and Avery Solomon, they wrote:
It is our belief the astrological mandala is a fragment of an archaic wisdom, and was devised by the profoundly wise sages of the past. This mandala of the signs and planets is a rare instance of— and product of—the archetypal imagination; it presents the topography of the subtle world through the forms available in sensible becoming. This root symbol of astrology represents a formulation by reason principles of a symbolic method through which those very reason principles are being manifested. Reason principles are those living meanings or categories of thought that are the substantial aspect (forms) of the soul. (Undated paper, “Reading a Chart”)
Working out the meanings hidden in the astrological mandala then became his preoccupation, and he was developing a book-length ms. about his insights when he died in 1984. The ms. was completed by some of his students and published posthumously in 2000 as Astronoesis: Philosophy’s Empirical Context, Astrology’s Transcendental Ground. You can learn more about Astronoesis in the section below titled “Plotinus and Astronoesis.” Link to “Plotinus and Astronoesis”
Reading the Natal Charts of Accomplished Individuals
Alongside the classes devoted to unfolding his vision of the metaphysical chart were classes concerned with the art of reading a natal chart and the epistemology of astrology. Having placed astrology on a proper metaphysical foundation, he was interested in how its principles could be applied to understanding all the factors involved in reading a chart. There were both classes on the theory of astrology and intensive seminars that focused on reading the natal charts of well-known individuals such as Napoleon, Mahatma Ghandi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Jung, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Giacomo Puccini, Rimsky-Korsakov, and many more.
You can find transcripts of many of the classes on the horoscopes of these individuals on the class series page or by searching under their last name in the document archive. The titles in the series all have the form “Astrology: [X’s] Horoscope,” where “X” stands for the person’s last name.
There were often several classes devoted to a single individual. First a biographical sketch would be assembled of the major events in their lives, and then the class would look at their natal chart, including the degree symbols for the natal planets, the natal aspects, and then transits and progressions. An effort would be made to correlate transits and progressions with the events listed in the biography. The aim was to get the broadest picture of the individual, from birth till death, in order to understand the patterns in the soul at the moment of birth and what the soul was trying to achieve in that particular life. These classes forged and refined the application of astrological principles to reading a natal chart. The understanding of these principles evolved and developed over time, and sometimes prior meanings were superseded by later ones.
Astrological Theory
The classes on the theory and epistemology of astrology covered many topics—too many to discuss in detail in this overview. But it might be useful to mention some of them here since they can serve as sources of keywords for searching the archive:
- the difference between the sidereal and tropical zodiacs
- the tropical zodiacal degrees as units of meaning and how they are symbolized by the various degree symbol dictionaries
- the natal planets as categories of the imagination vs. transiting planets as powers of the rational soul
- the nature of the trans-Saturnian planets of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto
- how transits by the trans-Saturnians differ from transits by the Chaldean planets
- the three types of aspects (regular—that is, conjunction, semisextile, sextile, square, trine, quincunx, opposition—quintiles and septiles)
- the three levels of subjectivity symbolized by the chart (bodily, psychical, and spiritual)
- the meaning of the Arabic parts
There is a class series on Arabic parts, see “Astrology Theory: Arabic Parts.” Link to this series
To find transcripts and papers on astrology theory, search the document archive using “theory” as a keyword. Most, but not all, of these will be on astrology theory. Link to search results
Paul Brunton and the Truth of Mentalism
Damiani was a devoted student of the illuminate Paul Brunton (hereafter “PB”). After Damiani read PB’s book The Wisdom of the Overself in 1946, he wrote to the publisher to try to arrange a meeting with PB. This meeting took place a bit later in New York City, and after PB spoke a few words, Damiani knew intuitively that he had met his spiritual teacher. PB had raised the question in his earlier book The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga how do we know of a world that is apparently outside us? His answer, which takes many chapters to unfold and reason out, is that all we can know of the world is what our mind presents to us. The sensations that inform us of the existence of the world are ultimately mental experiences. The world is within the mind, not outside it. The only world we can ever experience is a mental one. PB calls this doctrine “mentalism.” The reasoned arguments of that book, which are continued in its sequel, The Wisdom of the Overself, jolted Damiani out of complacency and led to a lifelong preoccupation with epistemology, mentalism, and the nature of the mind. For although the basic truth of mentalism seems easy to grasp, it runs counter to our habitual thinking and often provokes fierce resistance. Moreover, if our mind can produce the sensations of the vast sky, sun, jagged mountain peaks, and exquisitely formed flower petals without our conscious deliberation or deliberate choice, then evidently we are conscious of just the surface functioning of our mind and are ignorant of its depths. So these reflections, among other things, spurred Damiani on a quest for self-knowledge and an investigation into the Soul, what PB terms the “Overself.”
Thus the archive contains many transcripts of classes on mentalism, the symbolic nature of the mind’s functioning, and the epistemology of various schools and traditions such as the Advaita Vedanta, Samkhya, Yogacara, Platonism, Plotinus, the Buddhist Logicians, medieval Scholastics, and Kant.
You can find many of these transcripts grouped by topic on the class series page. Link to class series page There is even a seven-month series on the core chapters of The Wisdom of the Overself, comprising thirty-two classes, “Paul Brunton’s The Wisdom of the Overself.” Link to this series
PB’s Notebooks
Shortly after PB’s death in 1981, his notebooks arrived at Wisdom’s Goldenrod, to be edited and published posthumously by some of Damiani’s students, who were selected by PB to be his editors. PB’s notebooks were filled with “paras,” as he called them, short paragraphs consisting of only a few sentences, which he organized using a system of twenty-eight categories. Damiani and the Wisdom’s Goldenrod community immersed themselves in studying PB’s vast literary output, as well as in preparing the material for publication. In the last three years of his life, Damiani studied and meditated on these paras and then explained many of them with originality and insight in classes he led. There are twelve class series alone that focus on PB’s paras in various categories—for example, the Intellect, the Ego, What is Philosophy? Mentalism, Overself and Inspiration—and these series comprise at least ninety-three individual classes! The titles of these series all begin “Paul Brunton’s Notebooks.” Link to all class series pageTo learn more about PB, go here. Link to About Paul Brunton.docx
These paras also influenced the way he thought about other topics that he had been investigating, especially the nature of the individual Soul and its relationship to both the cosmos and the three primal hypostases of Plotinus. For example, from April to June 1983, he led a series of classes on PB paras on the Overself, “Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 22, Inspiration and the Overself,” Link to this serieswhich had a great impact on the way he thought about and presented the double nature of Soul in Plotinus. His essays for the Soul chapter in Astronoesis reflect this new orientation. You can follow the progression of his thinking about individual Soul as he assimilated PB’s paras about the Overself in the classes in these two series:
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 1” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 2” Link to this series
See also the sections “Plotinus and Astronoesis” Link to this sectionand “Advaita Vedanta” Link to this sectionfor other ways in which Damiani’s contemplation of PB’s paras affected his ongoing investigations.
Plato
Damiani had a lifelong love of Plato and great respect for the Platonic tradition that flowed from him. In the classes at Wisdom’s Goldenrod, certain ideas from Plato were seminal. Although he read the dialogues in their entirety on his own, in classes he focused on just a few key ideas he found in Plato and certain crucial passages from the dialogues. Here are some of them (though this is not meant to be an exhaustive list).
Platonic Ideas as Real Beings
Platonic Ideas are real Beings, more authentic than the things that participate in them. They are not abstractions in the human intellect but one with the substance of the Divine Mind—the Intellectual-Principle, in Plotinian language. Platonic Ideas have the power to effectuate themselves and bring about sensible images of themselves. They are the exemplars, or archetypes, of everything in the cosmos and constitute wisdom, intelligence, the activity of goodness, and beauty. Damiani symbolized them using the twelve zodiacal signs and regarded the sidereal and tropical zodiacs as a functional image of these Ideas. The sidereal zodiac receives the power and wisdom of the Ideas, transmits it in a stepped-down form to the tropical zodiac, which in turn uses them to fabricate the creatures on Earth.
The Divided Line
The Divided Line, discussed in Republic, Book 7, is the archetype of all knowing and known objects. Its fourfold nature represents four ways of knowing and the objects coordinate with them, arranged in a hierarchy from the truest level, which is most unified and most inclusive, to the least true, which is most dispersed and most partial. These four ways of knowing are (1) intellectual intuition or contemplation, (2) intuitive reasoning, (3) perceptual belief, and (4) imagining. This fourfold archetype, since it is itself an Idea, can manifest at many different levels.
See the class series titled “Plato: The Divided Line,” if this topic interests you. Link to this series
Also, search the document archive using “Divided Line” as keywords, to find more transcripts and papers on the Divided Line. Link to search results
There are also many diagrams in his sketchbooks on the Divided Line, many of which correlate some of the dignities of the metaphysical chart with the four ways of knowing (or four gnostic functions). Select “Divided Line: Plato” in the drop-down topic menu to find them. Link to search results in diagram archive
The Sensible Sun as an Image of the Idea of the Good
According to Plato, in Republic, Book 7, the sensible Sun is an image of the Idea of the Good. One way Damiani elaborated this was in terms of each star being the body of a solar logos, a cosmic soul rooted in the Nous that provides the unity to its own solar system. In 1976-77, in his first attempt at writing a book introducing the astrological mandala, he began with a discussion of this passage, which precedes the Divide Line passage. He unfolded the idea that the Sun was a solar logos with its unity in the Intellectual-Principle, using Plotinus’s and Emperor Julian’s remarks about the intelligible Sun. This approach was later superseded by the approach he took in Astronoesis, which begins with a discussion of the Transcendent One instead.
The Demiurge and Its Contemplation of “Animal Itself”
The Demiurge fabricates the cosmos by bringing number and form to a primeval chaos by contemplating an intelligible paradigm, “Animal Itself,” in the Timaeus. He generates the universe as a single living creature animated by the soul of the universe. Damiani was intrigued by this notion and wanted to know in more detail how the Demiurge assimilated the intelligible paradigm, which Damiani conceived as the twelve Ideas, represented by the twelve houses of the astrological mandala. He also connected the Demiurge to the meaning of the various placements of Jupiter in the metaphysical chart (that is, the dignities of Jupiter). The importance of Number as a structuring force in the universe was another idea he found in the Timaeus, which we discuss below in this section on Plato.
To find transcripts about the Demiurge, search the document archive using “Demiurge” or “Twofold Zeus.” Link to both search results in document archiveThere are also many diagrams in the sketchbooks that use the astrological symbolism to depict how the Demiurge receives the Ideas and uses them to fabricate the universe. Select “Twofold Zeus” in the drop-down topic menu to find them. Link to search results in the diagram archive
Twofold Soul
Soul is twofold: one that is permanently part of the intelligible world and one that is intimately bound up with the functioning of the planetary spheres, is an idea that can be traced, in part, to the Timaeus. In the Timaeus, the Demiurge supplies the immortal origin of soul, but he commands his progeny, the planetary deities, to fabricate another form of soul to animate all the creatures whose archetype is to be found in the intelligible paradigm. This secondary form of soul is similar to the World Soul but less perfect in its constituents, and the irrational powers of appetite, emotion, and the ability to feel pleasure and pain are rooted in it. Damiani thought it was crucial for the spiritual aspirant to understand this second soul because its functioning can either obscure or manifest the knowing of the deeper immortal soul. Initially this second soul must be developed on the path to self-knowledge, but then later it must be purified and trained to be still so as to attend to the intimations of the higher soul. And since its temporary states or affections are connected to the motions of the planets, understanding the workings of one’s natal horoscope and how one’s mind is continually being transformed by the transiting planets is part of the quest for truth. There are several series that focus on this topic, for example:
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 1” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 2” Link to this series
“Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 20, What Is Philosophy? Series 1” Link to this series
“Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 20, What Is Philosophy? Series 2” Link to this series
“Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 22, Inspiration and the Overself” Link to this series
“Western Alchemy: The Soul’s Transformative Journey in the Cosmos; Perspectives from Neoplatonism, Jungian Thought, and Tibetan Buddhism” Link to this series
How the Demiurge Compounds Soul Essence
According to the Timaeus, the Demiurge “creates” the soul by “mixing” together three constituents: (1) a sameness that is indivisible and a sameness that is divisible about body, (2) a difference that indivisible and a difference that is divisible about body, and (3) a being that is indivisible and a being that is divisible about body. Thus the soul is midway between the intelligible and sensible worlds, able to comprehend both because of its nature, which is metaphorically represented as being “mixed” from the indivisible and divisible forms of the three genera—sameness, difference, and being. Damiani thought this conception of soul was revelatory and of immense value to those in quest of self-knowledge.
See the two series on Soul in Plotinus, which contain several papers on the essence of soul:
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 1” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 2” Link to this series
The Receptacle of the Timaeus
The matter, or the receptacle, of the Timaeus plays an important role in understanding the nature of the sensible world because the latter is a reflection in matter of the Ideas. Damiani elaborated the meaning of matter through his study of the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy (that is, their notion of prakriti and its three constituents, the gunas of sattva, rajas, and tamas), the Indian conception of vasanas (that is, habit-energies as the traces of the mind’s previous activity stored in mind substance), and his exposition of Plotinus’s ideas about matter.
The Eight Hypotheses of Parmenides
The dialogue Parmenides was of great interest to Damiani because of its insights into the meaning of oneness. This dialogue is usefully considered as having two parts. In the first, Plato places a devastating critique of the Theory of Forms in the mouth of an older Parmenides as he questions a young Socrates. In the second, there is apparently a response to this critique that involves a new method of dialectic, which involves various permutations of hypothesizing that something is the case and hypothesizing that it is not the case, and then examining what consequences can be deduced from each hypothesis. As an application of this method, Parmenides offers to demonstrate the consequences of supposing the One is and the consequences of supposing the One is not. What follows is a stunning demonstration that involves four ways of understanding the positive hypothesis and four ways of understanding the negative hypothesis, and the numerous deductions that follow from each. Although Plotinus has a few hidden references to the “eight hypotheses of the Parmenides,” the dialogue was extensively commented on by Neoplatonists following him, such as Iamblichus, Syrianus, and Proclus, who found in the eight hypotheses a hierarchy of both the degrees of being and the orders of the gods.
Damiani devoted many classes to understanding the eight hypotheses. He thought it contained the key to both understanding how Platonic participation in the Forms is possible (thus answering Parmenides’s critique in the first part of the dialogue) and how anything that is truly a one relates to the multiplicity internal to it. Thus it applies, for example, to the One, the Intellectual-Principle, each and every Idea, and Soul (both Absolute soul and all individual souls).
There are many classes on the Parmenides that have not yet been transcribed. To find the ones that have been transcribed, as well as some papers on the Parmenides, search the document archive using the keyword “Parmenides” Link to search resultsand examine the class series titled “Plato’s Parmenides: Eight Hypotheses Applied to Soul” for transcripts and papers on this topic. Link to this series
The Sophist and the Five Genera of Being
In the Sophist, in order to clarify how it’s possible to speak about what is not, Plato unfolds both the nature of nonbeing by articulating what “difference” means and the five “greatest kinds,” also called the “five genera of being”: essence, sameness, difference, rest, and motion. Damiani elaborated the former in several papers exploring how sensible being is a form of image-being and the latter in his discussions of the various kinds of categories: Platonic (ontological), epistemological (Kantian), and imaginal (Jungian and those found in the natal horoscope).
The Arithmetization of the Ideas
Aristotle attributed to his teacher, Plato, the view that Forms are Numbers. Aristotle claimed this teaching was transmitted orally and never written down. In the so-called unwritten doctrines, ascribed to Plato by Aristotle, Plato was also said to have derived all the Forms from two principles, the One and the Indefinite Dyad. J. N. Findlay, in his book Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, refers to this as the “arithmetization” and “mathematization” of the Ideas. Damiani too believed that Forms are Numbers. He led many classes that explored the different levels of Number: divine (superessential), essential, psychical, and monadic, and there is an entire section of Astronoesis on Number, focusing on the ten Divine Numbers, each a different way of viewing the One. He also intensely studied Plotinus’s tractate on Number, VI.6, and tried to expound this difficult text in classes.
Damiani saw psychical number at work in astrology, since the aspects between planets are based on the number of degrees of arc between them (for example, a square between two planets is formed when there is 90 degrees of arc between them), and even the 360 degrees of the zodiac were identified with reason-principles, the psychical form of Ideas. He was adamant that just as Ideas are not creations of our conceptual thinking but are living Intelligences with the power to structure our very existence, so too are Numbers.
To find relevant transcripts and papers, search on “Number” in keywords in the document archive. Link to search results in document archive
There are also several diagrams in the sketchbooks that symbolize the Divine Numbers using configurations of the essential dignities found in the metaphysical chart. You can find these by searching on “Number” in keywords in the diagram archive. Link to search results in the diagram archive
All of these fertile ideas found in the Platonic dialogues are also elaborated in the Enneads of Plotinus, and Damiani often investigated and meditated on their Plotinian formulations and expressions.
Plotinus and Astronoesis
Throughout history there have been a few individuals who have achieved the highest enlightenment possible for humans, sagehood, but it is rarer still to find a sage who has the skill and discernment to translate their inward vision into a symbolic text that is capable of evoking vision and intuition in receptive and trained minds. Plotinus was such a sage.
Plotinus lived and taught in Rome in the mid-third century ce and saw himself as inheriting an ancient tradition of wisdom that had passed through Parmenides, Pythagoras, and Plato. In the seven hundred years since Plato’s death in fifth-century Athens, a number of schools had developed that shared some elements in common with Plato but diverged in others: Aristotelianism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism. And there were newer schools, such as various sects of Gnosticism, as well as the rise of Christian thinkers, that were gaining influence among the students who came to Plotinus’s school. There Plotinus conducted seminars in which key texts of these schools were read, discussed, and criticized, and his own views explained. Although Plotinus saw himself as a defender and exegete of Plato, later historians of philosophy viewed Plotinus as both reinvigorating, and innovating upon, the Platonic tradition and designated Plotinus as the founder of a new tradition, Neoplatonism.
Whereas Plato often wrote about the life of the soul using so-called myths, Plotinus wrote about the soul and its spiritual journey in a vital, immediate way—seemingly from personal experience. One comes away from reading Plotinus with the vivid impression that he knows firsthand what he is talking about. Yet the Enneads are not a series of descriptions of mystical experiences, although his writing is perfumed with their fragrance, since throughout he engages dialectically with competing views that were current at the time in order to answer the various profound questions he poses.
Plotinus’s Writings as Revelation
Plotinus was such an important figure for Damiani for at least two reasons: First, Plotinus had firsthand experience of the Absolute, what he called “the One” or “The Good,” and he wrote evocatively about this “union” of the soul with the One as he stretched language and our commonsense ways of thinking to convey something of the One that is beyond any kind of dualistic approach. Second, he articulated clearly all the degrees of reality from the absolute perfection of the One, to its showing forth as the Divine Mind (Intellectual-Principle, Intellect, Nous), to the Soul, whose contemplation of the Divine Mind results in the ordered beauty of the sensible world, to the star souls and planetary gods who constitute the most sacred levels of the cosmos, down to the living creatures on our planet. Plotinus showed not only how each level includes in a paradigmatic way the contents that become manifest on a lower level, but also how a way of ascent to these higher degrees of being is possible for human beings here.
Damiani regarded Plotinus’s writings as scripture, as revelations received by the soul in contemplation: “Only the man, or only that person—I hate to use the word ‘man’—who has had the experience of the One is what I would consider scripture. The rest I consider scribblers” (transcript, 11/30/1979). But to plumb the depths of an inspired text requires a different mode of approach than one used to read a secular text because an inspired text possesses meanings not available to the conscious mind:
AD: Plotinus is a symbol. His writings are a symbol. Anyone thinks otherwise, he is absolutely deluded. Because it requires the development of an inward faculty. . . . So naturally when he would write, there would be on the one hand the language, the associations of language, all that we understand in terms of our mentality and rationality, and then there would be included in it this tremendous and treacherous depth, his understanding, let’s say, of the One, the Intellectual-Principle, and he would combine the two of them together and the production is a symbol. Now you want to call it a philosophic text, go right ahead. I call it a symbol. And in the process of working with that symbol, I’m extricating, or making available for myself, those depths of meanings, alright, which are not available to the conscious mind. (transcript, 01/09/1982)
The Composition of Astronoesis
Much of Damiani’s teaching and writing during the last seven years of his life focused on drawing out the depths of meaning he found in the Enneads, depths that opened to him only after prolonged meditation on selected passages. He contemplated not only these inspired passages but also various symbolic diagrams that used the language and symbolism of astrology to represent the intricate cosmology and metaphysics of Plotinus (see also the section above “The Astrological Mandala and Astrology’s Transcendental Ground” Link to this section). The results of these contemplations and meditations were a series of papers, many read and discussed in classes at Wisdom’s Goldenrod, that were intended to comprise a book. He wasn’t able to complete this book before he died, but a number of students, some of whom had worked closely with him in refining these papers, collaborated to produce a manuscript, which was then published by Larson Publications in 2000, replete with many of his diagrams, as Astronoesis: Philosophy’s Empirical Context, Astrology’s Transcendental Ground.
The book is divided into four chapters: chapter 1: “The One”; chapter 2: “The Intellectual-Principle”; chapter 3, “Soul”; chapter 4, “The System of Nature.” There is also a section called “Interlude: Number” that comes between chapters 1 and 2, and the book includes supplemental sections and notes by the editors, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.
Because the study of Plotinus was so central to Damiani’s research in the latter part of his teaching career, it is difficult to summarize the central themes in Plotinus that occupied him. Please see the descriptions of the following class series for more details:
“Astronoesis: The One and Intellectual-Principle, Series 1” Link to this series
“Astronoesis: The One and Intellectual-Principle, Series 2” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 1” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 2” Link to this series
“The Idea of Man” Link to this series
Iamblichus and Proclus
In addition to his contemplation of Plotinus, Damiani also studied the works of Iamblichus and Proclus, two philosophers who continued the reinvigoration of Platonism begun by Plotinus. Proclus (fifth century ce) wrote extensive commentaries on the Platonic dialogues, which until recently were only available in English in the translations by the nineteenth-century translator Thomas Taylor. Proclus developed his own hierarchical system and correlated different orders of gods, conceived as superessential unities, with each degree of being.
Proclus: Bound and Infinite
Although Damiani didn’t agree with the way Proclus conceived of the One, he thought there was much of value in Proclus’s writings. For example, in his discussion of the One in chapter 1 of Astronoesis, Damiani elaborated Proclus’s conception (itself based on Plato’s Philebus) that Bound and Infinity (or Limit and Unlimited) are two principles that manifest the One.
For classes that discuss the meaning of Bound and Infinity, see the two class series “Astronoesis: The One and Intellectual-Principle, Series 1” Link to this series and “Astronoesis: The One and Intellectual-Principle, Series 2. Link to this series
Proclus: Monads and Henads
Also, in unpacking the meaning of the essential dignities in the astrological mandala, he made use of Proclus’s idea that Being, Life, Intellect, Soul, Nature, and Body are each unific principles, which Proclus called “monads.” And he used Proclus’s notion of the gods as superessential unities, or henads, to both unfold the highest meaning of the seven Chaldean planets and articulate the structure of the “aspectless aspects” of the One, symbolized by the dignities in the first quadrant of the metaphysical chart.
For more on the role of monads and henads in the astrological mandala, see About the Metaphysical Chart.docx. Link to .
For more on the astrological mandala, see the section “The Astrological Mandala and Astrology’s Transcendental Ground.” Link to this section
To find diagrams about the monads and henads, select either “Henads,” “Henads and Monads,” or “Monads” in the drop-down topic list in the diagram archive Link to search results for these three searchesUnfortunately, we don’t have any audio files for most of the classes on Proclus. At best we have some partial class summaries that have been scanned, and of these, only a few have been retyped as Word documents that are included in the archive. But because some of these Proclean ideas are found in many classes where the main focus was not explicitly Proclus and we do have audio and transcripts for some of these, it is important to note the Proclean pedigree of these ideas.
The Orphic and Chaldean Theogonies
G. R. S. Mead in his book Orpheus summarized and organized many of Proclus’s remarks about the various orders of gods in his Theology of Plato and his commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, and Mead created several charts that depicted the hierarchical orders of the gods. Damiani, in turn, created a number of diagrams that correlated these orders with the astrological mandala in a variety of ways.
You can find them in the diagram archive by selecting “Orphic Theogony (G. R. S. Mead)” or “Chaldean Theogony (G. R. S. Mead)” in the drop-down menu. Link to search results in diagram archive for each of these
Iamblichus
Another Neoplatonist that Damiani studied was Iamblichus, who lived at the turn of the third century ce. There is more known now about the powerful influence Iamblichus had on Proclus’s metaphysics than when Damiani was alive. The only text available in English translation at the time Damiani was teaching was On the Mysteries, which argued for the superior value of theurgic practices over purely intellectual contemplation.
Damiani gave a series of classes on this text in 1981, and we have transcripts for all of them (see the class series titled “Iamblichus: On the Mysteries”). Link to this series
C. G. Jung
Carl Jung (1875-1961) was the founder of the analytical school of psychology. He is famous for pioneering the concept of the unconscious mind, the role of archetypes as unconscious structures that shape and influence the conscious mind, the significance of symbols as the language the unconscious uses to communicate with the conscious mind, the importance of a strongly developed ego as the focus where the unconscious can become conscious, and for his studies on alchemy, among other things.
Jung’s Archetypes Not the Same as Platonic Ideas
Damiani used the study of Jung’s writings to introduce students to the vastness, depth, and power of the psyche, to show them the importance of symbols, and also to provide them with tools to become reflectively aware of their unconscious biases, complexes, and projections. He often contrasted Jung’s psychological perspective with that of Plotinus and the Neoplatonists. He strove to demarcate Jungian archetypes from the forms in the soul (both individual and cosmic) and the Ideas in the Intellectual-Principle, the categories of the imagination from the epistemological categories of Kant and the “five greatest kinds” of Plato and Plotinus, and the four Jungian gnostic functions (thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition) from the four gnostic functions of Plato’s Divided Line. In all of these cases, he argued that Jung was limited by his psychological standpoint, which is within the imagination, and didn’t acknowledge the validity of cosmological and ontological standpoints, which are superior to and structure the imagination. But that is not to dismiss the psychological standpoint, which has its own validity.
There are a number of classes on Jung’s psychology given in 1973 for which we have audio that have not yet been transcribed. If and when they are transcribed, they will probably form a new series.
Jungs’ Writings on Alchemy
Damiani led two series of classes that focused on Jung’s writings on alchemy. The first series, “Jung’s Psychological View of Alchemy,” focused primarily on Jung’s work “The Psychology of the Transference” and the Rosarium alchemical text. Link to this seriesThe second series, “Western Alchemy: The Soul’s Transformative Journey in the Cosmos; Perspectives from Neoplatonism, Jungian Thought, and Tibetan Buddhism,” delved deep into Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis as part of a larger project exploring how the soul learns from its experiences of embodiment in the cosmos. Link to this seriesSee the next section below, “Western Alchemy and the Kalachakra Tantra,” for more on this series.
Some other class series that pertain to Jung are the following:
“Astrology: Jung’s Horoscope, Series 1” Link to this series
“Astrology: Jung’s Horoscope, Series 2” Link to this series
“Jung’s Four Psychological Functions and the Transcendent Function” Link to this series
“Jung’s ‘Spirit and Life’” Link to this series
James Hillman and Archetypal Psychology
Damiani was also interested in works by contemporary psychologists who thought of themselves as practicing “archetypal psychology.” James Hillman, who began as a practitioner of Jung’s analytical psychology, founded this school. He emphasized the notion of the psyche as the play of archetypal forces and fantasies and was very attracted to the idea that the psyche is naturally polytheistic, not monotheistic. Many of the psychologists associated with archetypal psychology, for example, Edward Casey, Thomas Moore, and Roberts Avens published articles in the journal Spring.
Damiani found Hillman’s writings on the nature of images and symbols very helpful for understanding how to apprehend and grasp the meaning of the Sabian symbols, which symbolize each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac. There are several class transcripts on this, and he also created at least one annotated abridgment of one of Hillman’s papers on image, “Image-Sense” (there may be more that exist only as scanned documents that haven’t been retyped as Word documents). Link to this record in document archive
Search on “Hillman” in the document archive for transcripts that reference James Hillman. Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
Search on “Archetypal Psychology” in the document archive for transcripts on archetypal psychology. Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
There is also a class series titled “What Is Emotion? An Analysis Integrating Buddhist and Archetypal Psychology” on a paper Damiani wrote that is an annotated abridgment of Hillman’s book Emotion. Link to this series
Western Alchemy and the Kalachakra Tantra
Damiani engaged in an intensive study of alchemy because he saw it as a process of authentic ontological transformation of the self rather than the transmutation of material substances (although he did think some of the alchemical masters succeeded in accomplishing the latter). He read all of C. G. Jung’s works on alchemy but was critical of Jung’s psychological interpretation of alchemical texts. Drawing extensively on Jung’s alchemical writings, including Mysterium Coniunctionis, as well as from Atwood’s A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, Plotinus’s Enneads, and Buddhist texts like The Sublime Science (Uttaratantra), Damiani integrated Western Hermetic traditions with Plotinian Neoplatonism and the Buddhist Kalachakra tantra. He saw these traditions as all working on the same problem: how is the soul being transformed through its focused attention to its embodiment and immersion in the cosmos? The classes on this topic were simultaneously on alchemy, Jung, Buddhist tantra, the development of the subtle body, mystical experience, symbols, and the creative imagination. And bits of occult lore about what it’s like to undergo various mystical experiences are spread throughout.
See the following two series that focus on both alchemy and Kalachakra:
“Western Alchemy: The Soul’s Transformative Journey in the Cosmos; Perspectives from Neoplatonism, Jungian Thought, and Tibetan Buddhism” Link to this series
“Kalachakra Tantra and Western Alchemy” Link to this series
Samkhya
The Samkhya school is one of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy. It is famous for its analysis of experience as involving twenty-five principles (tattvas), divided into two fundamentally different categories. The first of these is purusha, which is conceived as a pure, immaterial, awareness. It is inactive and has no causal power. There are a plurality of purushas, which are individual selves. The second category is prakriti, which is the unmanifest material stuff that contains the potentiality to evolve from within itself a series of twenty-three evolutes, which are different grades of mind and body. These tattvas have causal power, but in themselves they are unable to know or be aware of anything. Purushas can act only if they take themselves to be embodied (first in a mental body, then in a body constituted of the elements, subtle and gross), while the mental and physical bodies are sentient and possess the power to know only when they are not distinguished from a purusha. The self is said to be in bondage insofar as it identifies itself with any of these evolutes of prakriti. Through the practice of discrimination, the self can gradually disidentify with the body and the mind. As it does so, each evolute resolves back into its prior tattva, in the reverse sequence of causal evolution, until the purusha is liberated in a state of isolation from prakriti and, simultaneously, prakriti ceases to be manifest for that purusha, although for the other purushas still in bondage, it remains manifest.
Why Damiani Was Interested in Samkhya
Damiani was interested in Samkhya for several reasons. First, it offers a detailed analysis of mind as substance and function, presented as a hierarchy of principles, each principle having one or more distinctive functions. This lends itself to comparisons with analyses of mind or soul in other thinkers and traditions, as well as with correlations with various divisions of the metaphysical chart (houses) and the essential dignities in those houses. Link to about the metaphysical chart.docx
Second, it makes a clear distinction between the soul and its vehicles, and emphasizes the importance of discriminating between the self and its vehicles. From Damiani’s reading of Plato, Plotinus, PB, Advaita Vedanta, and Buddhism, this is a crucial aspect of the path to spiritual liberation.
Third, it offers a rich account of matter and its tendencies to function in certain ways, which is an ancient problem in philosophy, discussed by Plato, Plotinus, Advaita Vedanta, Alchemy, Kabbalah, etc.
Fourth, its critics point out the challenge in having an ultimate dualism in one’s metaphysics: how can two fundamentally disparate principles ever be related?
Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya (KCB)
Damiani thought highly of the twentieth-century Indian philosopher Krishnachandra Bhattacharyya, often referred to as “KCB.” In the classes on Samkhya, he often used Bhattacharyya’s terse essays “Studies in Samkhya Philosophy” and “Studies in Yoga Philosophy” to explain the Samkhya system. And in many of these classes he tried to correlate the Samkhya tattvas with various divisions of the metaphysical chart, usually with the dignities in the last three houses (the fourth quadrant). There are transcripts of some of these classes, but for others we have only audio files that haven’t yet been transcribed or scans of student summaries that haven’t been digitized.
There is one class series on Samkhya; see “Samkhya and Ethers” in the list of class series. Link to this series
You can find other extant transcripts on Samkhya by searching under the keyword “Samkhya” in the document archive. Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
There are also many diagrams in the sketchbooks that show various correlations between the Samkhya tattvas and the dignities and houses of the metaphysical chart. Select “Samkhya” in the drop-down topic menu Link to the search results in diagram archiveor use “Samkhya” in a keyword search to find them. Link to the search results in diagram archive
There are some classes that focus on Bhattacharyya’s other articles, which often espouse his uniquely modern take on the Advaita Vedanta. Damiani was particularly interested in KCB’s discussion of three levels of subjectivity (bodily, psychic, and spiritual), and his analysis of the three functions of knowing, willing, and feeling. Many of these classes discussed KCB’s views in relation to astrology theory. Although there are transcripts of some of these classes, there are many more classes for which we have audio files that have not been transcribed. If and when these audio files are transcribed, some will, no doubt, form new class series.
To find transcripts of classes where KCB’s views are discussed and applied, search on “Bhattacharyya” in the document archive. Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
Advaita Vedanta
The Advaita Vedanta is the nondual school of the Vedanta tradition of Indian philosophy. Given the large number of books on Advaita Vedanta in the Wisdom’s Goldenrod library, which were donated by Anthony Damiani from his personal collection, he spent many hours studying these texts. Also, as mentioned above, his spiritual guide was Paul Brunton, who was instrumental in presenting Asiatic wisdom to the West as a living spiritual tradition. PB, as Paul Brunton preferred to be called, in turn had several teachers in the Advaita tradition, including Ramana Maharshi, the Jagadguru Shri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Shankaracharya Mahaswamigal, and Sri V. Subrahmanya Iyer.
PB’s Re-Visioning of Advaita
One of PB’s tasks was to present the highest teaching of India, arguably, the Advaita, in modern English, clearly and free of any sectarian bias. This was a complex project involving, for example, reinterpreting the doctrine of Maya—the world as being illusory—in terms of the world as being mental, projected by thought. In this way, the world’s materiality, not its existence, is denied.
Another strand of this project is explaining that there are a plurality of standpoints, and each one determines how the Truth appears. PB simplified this to the doctrine of a double standpoint, the immediate (practical) and the ultimate.
Another part of his project is reinterpreting the doctrine that Atman is Brahman in a way that avoids what PB calls the “fallacy of divine identity”—that is, identifying the individual soul, the Overself, with the Absolute.
How Damiani Continued PB’s Project of Revisioning Advaita: Maya as Measure
Damiani continued PB’s project in a number of ways. For example, since the term “maya” is derived from a Sanskrit root that means “measure,” the doctrine of Maya means that universal manifestation and its principle, Being, are structured by Wisdom and Number. The Intellectual-Principle is not illusory but is a limited (that is, measured) but extremely intelligent expression of Brahman, the One, the Absolute.
Emanationism (Plotinian) vs. Illusory Modification (Advaita)
Moreover, the nondual includes the dual and is not opposed to it. Or alternatively, if Advaita is interpreted as expounding a monism, then it’s expressing only a partial truth, the truth as experienced in the Void of contemplation. But if it is interpreted as expounding nondualism, it includes the double standpoint and is thus complete and no longer partial.
We find discussions of these topics primarily in the classes in which Damiani presented drafts of his chapter on the One (later posthumously published as chapter 1 of Astronoesis), especially when he discusses the difference between emanationism and illusory modification. For class transcripts on this topic, see the two class series “Astronoesis: The One and Intellectual-Principle, Series 1” Link to this seriesand “Astronoesis: The One and Intellectual-Principle, Series 2.” Link to this series
Maya Reinterpreted as Mentalism
As for the reinterpretation of the doctrine of Maya as mentalism, Damiani probed, examined, and brought out the profound complexities of mentalism throughout his teaching career. See, for example, the class series “Paul Brunton’s “The Wisdom of the Overself,” Link to this serieswhich took place in 1979-80, and the later series, “Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 21, Mentalism.” Link to this series
The Fallacy of Divine Identity
For Damiani’s explication of the fallacy of divine identity, see the two class series “Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 25, World-Mind in Individual Mind, on the ‘Fallacy of Divine Identity,’ Series 1” Link to this seriesand “Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 25, World-Mind in Individual Mind, on the ‘Fallacy of Divine Identity,’ Series 2.” Link to this series
If the statement “Atman is Brahman” doesn’t mean that my authentic selfhood is literally the same as Brahman in every respect, what does it mean? To answer this question, we must delve deeply into many connected notions, including the mysterious Overself, the enlightenment of a sage, the meaning of insight in PB’s writings, sahaja and nirvikalpa samadhi, Damiani’s notion of the absolute individual (the Asmita principle), the double knower of Plotinus, and more. Some of the relevant class series are the following:
“Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 22, Inspiration and the Overself” Link to this series
“Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 20, What Is Philosophy? Series 1” Link to this series
“Paul Brunton’s Notebooks: Category 20, What Is Philosophy? Series 2” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 1” Link to this series
“Plotinus: Soul, Series 2” Link to this series
Vedantic Epistemology
Damiani also investigated Vedantic epistemology. Some of the texts he used in classes on Vedantic epistemology were Mahadevan, The Philosophy of Advaita; Swami Satprakashananda, Methods of Knowledge according to Advaita Vedanta; and Swāmi Mādhavananda (trans.), Vedānta-Paribhāsa. He often presented this epistemology in the context of comparing it to other epistemologies such as that of Plotinus, PB, the Scholastics, and the Buddhist Logicians. See, for example, the class series “Epistemological Synthesis.” Link to this series
There are other class transcripts on Vedantic epistemology. To find them, search the document archive using as a keyword “Vedantic Epistemology.” Link to search results in document archive using this phrase You can also search the document archive using “Vedanta,” Link to search results in document archive using this phrase as a keywordbut not every transcript in your search results will be on Vedantic epistemology, but some will be.
The Five Koshas of Vedanta
Damiani also found the Vedantic presentation of the five koshas (vehicles, or sheaths) of the Atman very insightful: the anandamaya kosha (bliss sheath), vijnanamaya kosha (intuitive intellection sheath), manomaya kosha (mind sheath), pranomaya kosha (vitality sheath), and annamaya kosha (physical sheath). He often compared them with their Neoplatonic equivalents: augoeides, noeron, sunlike, moonlike, and shelly vehicles, respectively. In Plotinian terms, these sheaths describe levels of functioning of the phase of soul that is associated with body (at all of these different levels), which Damiani often referred to as the Asmita, or I AM principle. He also correlates the vehicles with different levels of the cosmos to which they afford the soul experiential access, from the inerratic sphere down to the Earth.
[insert Astro_fig__167.png, 5 koshas, here]
The five sheaths in Vedanta and the five vehicles in Neoplatonism in a cosmological context. (Reproduced courtesy of Wisdom’s Goldenrod. From Anthony Damiani, Astronoesis: Philosophy’s Empirical Context, Astrology’s Transcendental Ground, fig. 167, p. 347.)
Although Damiani discusses the koshas and soul vehicles in many contexts, his most sophisticated accounts are probably to be found in the two class series on soul in Plotinus “Plotinus: Soul, Series 1” Link to this seriesand “Plotinus: Soul, Series 2. Link to this series
Another way to find class transcripts on the koshas is to search the document archive using “kosha” as a keyword. Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
There are also some diagrams in the sketchbooks that show the different levels of the koshas. To find them, search the diagram archive using “koshas” as a keyword. Link to the search results in diagram archive
The Four and Sixteen States of Consciousness
Another Vedantic idea that Damiani found to be quite fertile was that of the four states of consciousness: (1) turiya (the transcendent fourth state), (2) prajna (deep sleep), (3) taijasa (dream), and (4) vaishvanara (waking). These are set forth in the Mandukya Upanishad, where they are described as the “four quarters of Atman.” Damiani thought this fourfold division of consciousness described something very profound about the structure of reality.
He correlated the four states with both the four quadrants and the four rings of the metaphysical chart. In other words, they form a hierarchy of One, Being, Soul, and Body (when correlated with the four quadrants), or a hierarchy of Being-Life, Intellect, Soul-Nature, and Body (when correlated with the four rings of essential dignities).
When the two views are combined, we get sixteen states of consciousness, since each of the four quadrants is itself divided into four by the four rings. For example, if turiya is correlated with the first quadrant and the rulership ring, prajna with the exaltation ring, taijasa with the detriment ring, and vaishvanara with the fall ring, then the dignities in the rulership ring of the first quadrant will be correlated with turiya-turiya, the dignities in the exaltation ring with turiya-prajna, the detriments with turiya-taijasa, and the falls with turiya-vaishvanara.
[insert Astro_fig__30.png here, the 16 states of consciousness]
The sixteen states of consciousness. (Reproduced courtesy of Wisdom’s Goldenrod. From Anthony Damiani, Astronoesis: Philosophy’s Empirical Context, Astrology’s Transcendental Ground, fig. 30, p. 70.)
There are also many diagrams in the sketchbooks that depict these correlations; to find them search using the keyword “Mandukya.” Link to the search results in diagram archive
Buddhism
Damiani often drew attention to the thousand-year-old controversy between the Hindu schools that affirmed a self and sought self-realization and the Buddhist schools that denied a self and sought realization of the emptiness of self. The debate could also be framed as between those who affirmed something eternal and unchanging and those who denied this and propounded the truth of universal momentariness. He thought T. R. V. Murti’s framing of the debate in his book The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A Study of the Mādhyamika System as between those who took substance as real (and denied the reality of function) and those who took function as real (and denied the reality of substance) was very insightful.
But it seemed incomprehensible to Damiani that only one of these traditions had insight into Truth and the other was radically mistaken. Indeed, one of his central projects was to show how these two points of view were complementary and not opposed.
He found this balanced and complete view in PB, as well as in Plotinus and some of the other Neoplatonists who gave substance and function equal status. For Plotinus, there is no authentic Being that is without power and there is no power, or activity, without authentic Being.
And the astrological mandala exhibits this by having the zodiacal signs represent substance and the planets in dignity in those signs represent its functions, and this in turn is reflected in the natal horoscope, where each planet (function) is on a certain degree of a sign (substance).
But the metaphysical chart also demarcates the realm of becoming (that is, the fourth quadrant, or houses 10-12) from the realm of Being (that is, the first three quadrants), and so the Buddhist schools were usually mapped on to the planets, houses, and signs in the fourth quadrant. One exception to this is the notion of Buddhahood, which is placed, according to the meanings for the signs and houses formulated by T. S. Row, in house 5, and is intimately connected to the Idea of Man, the five Dhyani Buddhas, and their five forms of wisdom.
Indian Buddhism
Although Damiani studied Zen Buddhism (for example, the books by D. T. Suzuki), and he often recommended Zen meditation techniques (for example, hua-t’ou) to his students and held intensive meditation weekends (that were called “sesshins” after the zazen practice in Zen monasteries), there weren’t a lot of classes on Zen Buddhism. Rather Damiani initially focused on such texts as F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic (2 vols.), Paul Dahlke, Buddhism and Science, Julius Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening, The Awakening of Faith, Asanga, The Sublime Science (Uttaratantra). He was quite interested in the Buddhist Logicians (for example, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Dharmakirti) because of their sharp distinction between the perception of particulars and inference involving conceptual generalities (their two ways of knowing, pramana).
See, for example, the two class series “Buddhist Philosophy and Epistemology: An Introduction” Link to this seriesand “Epistemological Synthesis.” Link to this series
The Nidana Chain and the Five Skandhas
Damiani was also interested in the Buddhist nidana chain, the twelvefold causal chain that explains how the birth and death of our mind/body arises from prior causes, as well as the analysis of a person into the five skandhas (nonpermanent aggregates). These twelve links very naturally map on to the twelve houses of the metaphysical chart.
You can find the diagrams from his sketchbooks that depict how the nidana chain and the five skandhas are related to the metaphysical chart by choosing “Nidana Chain and the Five Skandhas (Buddhism)” from the drop-down menu of topics in the diagram archive, Link to the search results in diagram archive and you can find classes on this topic by searching the document archive by typing “nidana chain” Link to search results in document archive using this phrase or “skandhas” Link to search results in document archive using this phrase in the keyword search box.
Damiani makes some fascinating comparisons by correlating the twelve links of the nidana chain, the twelve liberated gods of the Orphic theology, and the twelve signs of the zodiac. He saw both sets of dodecads as factors that structure the psyche of the embodied individual. In terms of the metaphysical chart, these dodecads are often placed in house 11. Many of these diagrams depict house 11 as a vesica formed by the intersection of two circles, representing houses 10 and 12. The vesica itself is then divided into twelve sectors, corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac, the links of the nidana chain, and the twelve liberated gods.
Tibetan Buddhism
As the connection with His Holiness the Dalai Lama deepened (he visited Wisdom’s Goldenrod in 1979 to dedicate the new library), Damiani began conducting classes on Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan tantra, especially the Kalachakra Tantra. For example, he led a series of classes commenting on Herbert Guenther’s essay “The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism” in Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, “Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy and Epistemology: An Introduction.” Link to this series
Kalachakra Tantra
After His Holiness the Dalai Lama invited Wisdom’s Goldenrod to attend an upcoming Kalachakra initiation, Damiani began investigating the Kalachakra tantra and the constituents of the subtle body manipulated in tantric practice—vital winds (pranas), subtle channels (nadis), and subtle drops (bindus). His approach, as always, was comparative and synthetic. In particular he compared the transformations of the subtle body in tantric practice to the alchemical processes described in Western alchemy, drawing on both C. G. Jung’s and Atwood’s writings on alchemy (M. Atwood, A suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery and Alchemy). Also, he used the astrological symbolism he had been developing to create a framework to compare Kalachakra and alchemy. In particular, the threefold structure of our cosmos—the inerratic sphere, planetary spheres, and the elements—were correlated with the alternative, outer, and inner Kalachakra, respectively, and with mercury, sulfur, and salt in alchemy. For more about these strikingly original investigations, see the two class series:
“Kalachakra Tantra and Western Alchemy” Link to this series
“Western Alchemy: The Soul’s Transformative Journey in the Cosmos; Perspectives from Neoplatonism, Jungian Thought, and Tibetan Buddhism” Link to this series
The Four Schools of Tibetan Buddhism
Damiani also investigated the four schools of Buddhism (as presented in the Tibetan Buddhism): Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, Yogacara, and Madhyamaka (but usually referred to in classes as “Madhyamika”). He found many parallels between Yogacara, sometimes called the Mind Only school, and PB’s mentalism, especially between the alayavijnana as a storehouse consciousness and the World-Mind as the ground consciousness supporting all individual centers of consciousness. Also PB’s exposition of the seed-thoughts that are projected forth as the world-image seems to be the same as the Yogacara school’s view that our experience of an external world is the ultimate effect of seed-thoughts (bijas) that are projected forth from a deeper level of mind.
Indeed, Damiani suggested that the basic tenets of all four schools could be found, reformulated and presented in jargon-free English, in PB’s “The Birth of the Universe” chapter of The Wisdom of the Overself. He challenged students to read this chapter carefully and try to identify which paragraphs pertained to which schools. This led to a series of classes in which students presented the tenets of the four schools and Damiani challenged them to go beyond pat verbal formulations and get to fundamental meanings. These classes were among the last Damiani ever gave. They were to prepare students for an upcoming audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Middlebury, CT, September, 1984. In a private meeting with His Holiness during that visit, Damiani asked him to take responsibility for guiding Wisdom’s Goldenrod after he died, and His Holiness agreed to assist the group as much as possible. Damiani passed away a few days after this audience.
There are two series on this topic:
“Tibetan Buddhism: The Yogacara and Madhyamaka Schools” Link to this series
“Paul Brunton’s The Wisdom of the Overself: ‘The Birth of the Universe’” Link to this series
The Traditionalists
Damiani studied the works by “Traditionalist” or “Perennialist” authors such as René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, and Julius Evola. Although he sometimes criticized them for writing in an arrogant and pretentious manner, he often used Guénon’s fivefold hierarchy of principles: (1) the Infinite, or Beyond Being, (2) Being, the principle of manifestation, (3) the causal or formless level of manifestation, (4) the subtle, and (5) the gross levels of formal manifestation.
[insert guenon-levels-AD-handwritten.jpg, photo of blackboard]
Diagram of Guénon’s five levels. Photo of Anthony Damiani’s drawing on a blackboard, probably at the American Brahman Bookstore, Ithaca, NY.
He also thought highly of Guénon’s The Multiple States of Being, especially his exposition of the concept of the Infinite as excluding all limitations, which means it is absolute affirmation, and of the related notions of Universal Possibility and Active and Passive Perfection.
He found another of Guenon’s books, Man and His Becoming according to the Vedānta, useful for its discussion of the self’s vehicles in terms of the tattvas of the Samkhya system of Indian thought and its discussion of the three conditioned states of the self (Atmā)—deep sleep, dream, and waking—and the unconditioned state of Atmā, the fourth (turiya). As he developed more precise language to describe the individual soul and its journey through the cosmos, making use of both Plotinus’s and PB’s insights, he criticized Guenon for not making clear all that is involved in the soul’s association with its vehicles, especially the role of the cosmic soul and its wisdom in providentially arranging experiences to educate the individual soul.
Most of the classes on the Traditionalists are either ones for which we have no audio, just scans of class summaries that have not yet been turned into Word documents, or ones for which the audio has not yet been transcribed.
Theosophy
Another fertile source of some key concepts for Damiani was Theosophy, a series of esoteric teachings based on Indian and Tibetan Buddhist texts presented by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, one of the cofounders of the Theosophical Society in 1875. Damiani was quite familiar with the major works of Blavatsky such as The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, as well as with the writings of Annie Besant and other figures in the Theosophical Society.
Sevenfold Constitution of Man
In the sketchbooks, we find many diagrams in which Damiani correlated the glyphs of the seven Chaldean planets with the sevenfold principles of man in Theosophy: (1) Atman (the universal Self), (2) Buddhi (the Intellect) (3) Manas (the higher mental principle), (4) Kama rupa (desire body), (5) Prana (life force), (6) Linga sharira (subtle or astral body), and (7) Sthula sharira (physical body). He also used these terms symbolically or analogically to refer to principles that are ontologically prior to those that constitute man. For example, he might refer to the deity governing our solar system, the Solar Logos, as also having these same seven constituents.
To see diagrams from the sketchbooks that correlate dignities in the metaphysical chart with Theosophic terms, search the diagram archive using the string “theos” (which will find diagrams with both “Theosophy” and “Theosophic” in the metadata). Link to the search results in diagram archive
Spiritual Evolution of Individuals
Another idea he found in Theosophy (although it’s also present in PB’s The Wisdom of the Overself) is that the universe is a hierarchy of spiritual individuals evolving ever finer vehicles of thought, feeling, and activity in an endless spiral evolution. Moreover this evolution can be described as passing through seven stages, which roughly correspond to the same sevenfold used to describe the constituents of man. Theosophy’s identification of the importance of the number seven in both cosmology and the constitution of man was welcomed and expanded upon by Damiani.
The Logos
Another Theosophical idea that Damiani amplified was that of the Logos, the principle of intelligence manifesting the universe (see, for example, I. K. Taimni, Man, God and the Universe). He later made use of the notion of a plurality of solar logoi in his exposition of cosmic souls in his book Astronoesis.
To find class transcripts that have some discussion of the Solar Logos, search in keywords in the document archive using “Solar Logos.” Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
T. S. Row’s Essay on the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac
Finally, the article by the theosophist T. S. Row on the meaning of the twelve signs of the zodiac as indicating the way that the Absolute manifests itself in a hierarchy of principles that stretches from the Absolute (Aries) to the five elements (Pisces) was the seed-idea that Damiani unfolded masterfully in his investigations into the metaphysical chart, or the astrological mandala.
The twelve signs of the zodiac as symbolizing twelve Divine Ideas is explored in many classes, as well as in the text of Astronoesis. To find many of these, search in keywords in the document archive using “Metaphysical Chart.” Link to search results in document archive using this phrase
Postscript
The topics discussed above do not exhaust all the traditions, topics, and individuals that Damiani investigated on his own and in the classes he led. For example, there were also classes on Kashmir Shaivism; Kabbalah; the Idea of Man; Kant, Cassirer; R. Steiner; G. R. Malkani; physics, including quantum mechanics; the practice of meditation; Ibn ‘Arabi; H. Corbin; Scholastic epistemology; among others. Many of these classes have been transcribed, some have audio that has not yet been transcribed, and for others there are partial transcripts and student notes.