In the Dark Places of Wisdom

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Summary: A Non-Fiction Version of the DaVinci Code
Review: A tiresome meander through bits & pieces of ancient history and philosophy to try to prove, once again, that there is a great effort to keep humans from realizing their potential and the secret wisdom that was revealed in former times. Dull, pedantic and unfocused.

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Summary: reads like a novel
Review: How rare is it for an academic philosopher to have a deep understanding of the mystical experience, one that clearly springs not from reading old books but from within him? In my experience as a reader it is unique, and Kingsley is the one. You can read this book in an afternoon, and if you have anything resembling an open mind it will not only surely change the way you view Western history, it might even point you to a new way of viewing the universe.What more could anyone ask of a mere book?

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Summary: Where's the Beef?
Review: I found reading Peter Kingsley's "In the Dark Places of Wisdom" to be quite frustrating insofar as he writes a great deal without really saying much. The idea behind this book is that there was once great wisdom lost to us as a result of a "conspiracy" lasting for over two millennia and perpetrated by western philosophers since the time of Plato. The majority of this book is dedicated to Kingsley's attempts to sort the threads of this lost wisdom, as revealed in some recently found artifacts, back to its source in Parmenides' and Pythagorean philosophy before it was tampered with by the "conspirators" including Plato, Aristotle and many others who subverted and corrupted their message which originated in the east. This is all fine and well and at times interesting, but the whole of Parmenides Philosophy as expounded by Kingsley would fill no more than 4 or 5 pages out of the 255 written (I'm being generous here). The rest of the book is devoted to showing how Kingsley has divined the truth coupled with his rather pedantic approach to exposing all Philosophers since Plato as missing what he, and he alone, sees so clearly. Kingsley promises to show us the way back to the essential truths of Parmenides. However, the only practical implications I can draw from this book would be for me to "lie down in a cave for a few days, eschewing food and distractions of the modern world and `incubate'". Thereby, in some mysterious way, I will find myself (if I really, really desire it) in the underworld in the company of the Goddess of Truth who will teach me wisdom and the means of filling the void in my inner being. Ah, it would be great if, as Kingsley implies, it were that simple. He ends this book by saying it is the first chapter of a long story so Kingsley may have something substantial in the future to say about Parmenides, the extant fragments of his writings, his philosophy and ecstatic techniques as a shaman and magician which he didn't accomplish this round.

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Summary: Manual for soul travel
Review: I've written thousands of reviews and all for pay, so this is a measure of my appreciation of Kingsley's book. Much of my reviewing was small press stuff, mystical or psychological preferred. I have shelves and boxes of books that I enjoyed and planned to re-read for a deeper understanding, but there they sit. Meanwhile I'm on my eighth re-reading of Wisdom and finding more each time. For me it compares to the challenging, roguish perplexities of Robert Graves' White Goddess. It opens a new room in my mind. And I agree with those who have the highest praise for Kingsley's writing style. I've made my living as a writer for 40 years and so studied popular styles - Kingsley is accessible yet intriguing. A clean, well-lighted room, yes, but with shape-shifters flitting through to tease you along. I can see why academics are shocked and appalled. Just great, can't recommend it enough. I found this book after 18 months of immersion in Idries Shah's brand of sufism, reading all of Shah and lots of related stuff, a hint at my attitude toward the academic. I'm not reading it for so-called facts but as a manual for real travel, as fuel, as a work that clicks with my intuition.

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Summary: a note of caution
Review: on page 164, Professor Kingsley writes: "But what we don't understand is that sometimes beings communicate through our dreams, in the same way that they try to communicate through outer events. It can be so difficult for them to draw the attention of the living..." Indeed.

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Summary: Rethinking our past, present and future
Review: This book is wonderful when it comes to explaining the proem (that is, the introductory part) of Parmenides' poem. I always thought there might have been a strong religious component to Parmenides' thought. However, the book is considerably less valuable when it comes to relating the proem to the other two parts of the poem. What does the descent into Tartarus tell us about the Way of Truth? What does it tell us about Parmenides' claims that only one thing exists and that we cannot speak of what is not? Dr. Kingsley doesn't give us much to go on.

Even worse is his account of the influence of Parmenides. This is partly taken, uncritically, from other scholars. He borrows the ridiculous view of Mitchell H. Miller, Jr., that Plato insulted Zeno in the dialogue called the Parmenides because he wanted himself rather than Zeno to be known as the rightful heir of Parmenides' ideas. Plato was too much of a philosopher to act in such a way. If he had a problem with Zeno's philosophy, he would have attacked it head on. Anyway, insulting Zeno was hardly sufficient for this purpose because PARMENIDES HAD ANOTHER STUDENT. Everyone knows that Melissus was also an heir to Parmenides' philosophy. If Plato wanted the world to think that he was the true heir to Parmenides, he was going to have to insult both Zeno and Melissus, which he didn't do.

Dr. Kingsley is also mistaken about Plato having "killed" the broader concept of what a philosopher is supposed to be, which Parmenides accepted. According to Kingsley, Parmenides believed that a philosopher should be a sort of shaman (or an Iatromantis, to use the technical term), but because Plato killed this notion in his dialogue the Sophist, it is now difficult for us to understand this earlier concept of the philosopher. First, it seems strange that someone who wanted to show himself to be the true heir of a predecessor should be so anxious to kill one of the ideas of that predecessor. Second, the basic point that Plato attacked in the Sophist (beginning at 237a) was a statement made by Parmenides that Kingsley never mentions: "Never shall this be proved, that things that are not are." This statement comes from Parmenides' Way of Truth (not the proem), and Plato focused exclusively on the Way of Truth when he "killed" Parmenides. He never bothered discussing the proem at all. Nor did he bother to discuss the concept of the philosopher as a shaman.

Furthermore, people before Plato had just as effectively "killed" Parmenides. Take the sophist Protagoras, for example, who lived after Parmenides but before Plato. According to one ancient source, Protagoras wrote a book (now lost) containing a refutation of Parmenides. This was long before Plato had "killed" him in the Sophist. But not only did Protagoras refute Parmenides, he also became so famous that Parmenides was left in the dust. Anyone who reads Plato's dialogue the Protagoras should be able to see this. Worst of all, Protagoras was not an Iatromantis, anymore than Plato was; instead, he was a teacher of rhetoric. The way to become a lawgiver in ancient Greece was not only through being an Iatromantis; the best way was to be able to speak persuasively, and that is what Protagoras claimed to be able to teach. The fact is that Protagoras attracted hordes of young people, while we hear nothing similar in connection with Parmenides.

Not only did Plato not "kill" Parmenides, if anything he RESCUED Parmenides from oblivion. Nowhere in his early dialogues did Plato pay the slightest bit of attention to Parmenides. Presumably, he ignored Parmenides because everyone else was ignoring him, too. In his middle dialogues, when he was supposedly steeped in Parmenidean thought, he mentioned him only twice (Symposium 178b and 195c). Neither mention contains any reference to Parmenides' metaphysics nor his cosmology; each is a reference to a genealogy of the gods. Even worse, in the Euthydemus, which is a dialogue written during the transition from the early to the middle periods, Plato seems to have thought of Parmenides as nothing but a sophist. (See 286c, particularly the phrase "and others before them.") It wasn't until the late period that Plato suddenly began taking notice of Parmenides and speaking of him in glowing terms. Clearly, Plato had changed his mind about Parmenides, and it is because of that change of mind that we now know as much about Parmenides as we do.

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Summary: A journey to the roots of the Western mystical tradition
Review: This book reads like a mystery story, or rather a story aboutmystery. It is based on solid academic scholarship, but is by no meanswritten in an academic style. Rather, it is a highly personal account of the author's discoveries about a famous Greek philosopher, Parmenides, and the philosopher's surprising secret. A philosopher whom thousands of years of academic scholarship and philosophy regarded as a dry logician, turns out to be the representative of an authentic Mediterranean tradition of mystical practice. Kingsley's writing takes on an almost religious intensity in places; he writes like a man with a vision, trying to awaken those who have suppressed or forgotten their own spiritual connections. DARK PLACES OF WISDOM is something that can transcend the seminars and the classrooms, reaching out to spiritual searchers who are sick of the banalities of our society and are questing for a more direct experience of the divine. According to Kingsley, this is how that quest, and that experience, was done back in the Sicilian colonies of ancient Greece, 2500 years ago. And that tradition that Kingsley discovers, has been hidden in the depths of our Western culture and consciousness ever since. If you want an adventure which is both intellectual AND mystical, try this book. END

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Summary: In the Dark Places of Wisdom
Review: This book simply floors me. Along with his scholarly tour de force Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, Kingsley is proving himself to be the Wilamowitz, Rohde or Nietzsche of the start of the new millenium. The man knows his sources intimately and has a truly sympathetic and astonishingly wide-ranging grasp of all the relevant material. As a neo-pagan who is at home with greek religious traditions I am so pleased to find a writer who combines solid scholarship with a mystical appreciation of the material he writes about. This book is a steal at twice the price. Buy it! read it and keep it always handy in your library of necessary texts.

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Summary: Not Entirely Without Merit
Review: This is a fairly short book, and can be read in one or two sittings. It is very easy to read, and sort of enjoyable. On the down side, this author spends too much time trying to vilify Plato and Aristotle, resorting to a very unlikely idea that they conspired to bury Parmenides' ideas, and/or make it look like Plato was his true heir, rather than Zeno. As other reviewers of this book have pointed out, they would have had no motive to do so. Since this book is so short and easy, what the author could have done is spend a lot more time supporting his ideas rather than just stating them as fact without convincing evidence. Or better yet, he could have chosen to just focus on the mystical importance of Parmenides' writings and just avoid the conspiracy theory and trying to rewrite history altogether. This is where I have the most sympathy for the author: I believe he may indeed understand Parmenides' writing from a mystical point of view, and in some ways this is why his writing style is passionate. For this reason I almost gave this book three stars; but I couldn't do this because this isn't the only book about the underworld initiation or "dying before you die"; and yet the author almost acts like it is or like he's discovered something nobody else has. If passionate and mystical, the author's style could also be described as lurid. He almost seems to act as if the discoveries are too amazing to be believed, narrating as if he's telling a children's story by continually using rhetorical questions like "And you know what they found next?". He suggests on one hand that people of european descent who are interested in the east are neglecting their own heritage, and then claims that we are indebted to the east and there is a conspiracy trying to cover that up. Actually, every book I've ever read on Greek Philosophy states that the Greeks took significant portions of their ideas from the east. At one point he mentions a memorial (constructed about 500 years after Parmenides was alive) of Parmenides which gives him a title that fits with his theory, yet when he points out that the face couldn't have been Parmenides' (on a statue of Parmenides) but it was a generic face, he overlooks that. In other words, he uses the evidence when it fits his theory, and excuses it when it doesn't. The people who constructed the memorial could have been mistaken about his title and it's implications since it was centuries after he lived. I think that if he focused on writing a book of mystical importance, rather than getting caught up trying to overthrow the establishment philosophers and rewrite history, he'd create something a lot better. He seems to forget that Plato also, was a mystic, and had received the underworld initiation. Even though universities focus mainly on Plato's secular writings, his mystical and esoteric writings are there. I still feel like I want to read this author's other books, if for no other reason than because they are kinda fun, and to write another critique.

Rating:
Summary: Not Entirely Without Merit
Review: This is a fairly short book, and can be read in one or two sittings. It is very easy to read, and sort of enjoyable. On the down side, this author spends too much time trying to vilify Plato and Aristotle, resorting to a very unlikely idea that they conspired to bury Parmenides' ideas, and/or make it look like Plato was his true heir, rather than Zeno. As other reviewers of this book have pointed out, they would have had no motive to do so. Since this book is so short and easy, what the author could have done is spend a lot more time supporting his ideas rather than just stating them as fact without convincing evidence. Or better yet, he could have chosen to just focus on the mystical importance of Parmenides' writings and just avoid the conspiracy theory and trying to rewrite history altogether. This is where the most sympathy for the author: I believe he may indeed understand Parmenides' writing from a mystical point of view, and in some ways this is why his writing style is passionate. For this reason I almost gave this book three stars; but I couldn't do this because this isn't the only book about the underworld initiation or "dying before you die"; and yet the author almost acts like it is or like he's discovered something nobody else has. If passionate and mystical, the author's style could also be described as lurid. He almost seems to act as if the discoveries are too amazing to be believed, narrating as if he's telling a children's story. He suggests on one hand that people of european descent who are interested in the east are neglecting their own heritage, and then claims that we are indebted to the east and there is a conspiracy trying to cover that up. Actually, every book I've ever read on Greek Philosophy states that the Greeks significant portions of their ideas from the east. At one point he mentions a memorial (constructed about 500 years after Parmenides was alive) of Parmenides which gives him a title that fits with his theory, yet when he points out that the face couldn't have been Parmenides' (on a statue of Parmenides) but it was a generic face, he overlooks that. In other words, he uses the evidence when it fits his theory, and excuses it when it doesn't. The people who constructed the memorial could have been mistaken about his title and it's implications since it was centuries after he lived. I think that if he focused on writing a book of mystical importance, rather than getting caught up trying to overthrow the establishment philosophers and rewrite history, he'd create something a lot better. He seems to forget that Plato also, was a mystic, and had received the underworld initiation. Even though universities focus mainly on Plato's secular writings, his mystical and esoteric writings are there. I still feel like I want to read this author's other books.