Mysteries, Math, and Metaphysics

Do you know what 'Ekstasis' means? Neither did I until I met Philolaus, disciple and successor of Pythagoras. I am called Simmias of Thebes, but my name is not Simmias and I am not from Thebes; I am from Metapontum, the small paradise on the Ionian Sea, just a short distance from Taranto and Brindisi to the east at the end of the Via Appia, and a little farther from Croton to the south near the end of the Via Latina, part way to the island kingdom of Sicily.

Metapontum is a Greek colony with fertile soil and considerable wealth. You should see our beautiful coins.

I am a musician. When I eventually wrote my dialogues on music it was thought safest not to make mention of Metapontum, nor to use my real name. It might have put me in danger, it might have brought disrepute to my writings and my students, and it might have caused difficulty for the other students of my mentor Socrates. Yes I am he whom Plato mentioned, though I did not literally say those things. quite the opposite, in fact. Plato used me more as a foil for the ideas of our great teacher.

At age 5 my father taught me the skill of continuously blowing bubbles in the water through a reed while breathing in through the nose. In this way he knew I was ready to play the aulos, one of the most beautiful instruments of our age. With the aulos one can make the most haunting and lovely tone, and one can play two notes together at the same time. It is called harmonia.

I think you should know that Plato put words in the mouth of Socrates that the great man did not say. Plato would have you believe that the only virtuous instruments are the lyre and the syrinx. The lyre is a noble instrument, the syrinx a humble shepherd's instrument, but what about the expressive range of the kithara? Socrates did not condemn any musical instrument or any musical mode. That was Plato's idea. Plato thought, in my opinion, a bit like a Spartan, austerely. This food is too appealing so we must not eat it, this music is too exciting so do not perform it, these were Plato's ideas, not, in my experience, what Socrates taught.

But I digress. I had an aptitude for music. I learned quickly and sounded well. Soon I was asked to perform in the theater. It was there that I learned I had a talent that was not quite usual. Have you ever gotten carried away while doing something? Have you ever been carried so far away that you left the earth behind and soared in the sky, or even visited another world for a short time in your mind's eye? When the music was most beautiful that happened to me. I was caught up in the sound and lost myself in the sky.

It was the enharmonic genus I loved the best. We have three genera, the diatonic, which is the simplest and has the largest intervals. Any child can sing in the diatonic genus. Then there is the chromatic, with smaller intervals, and a variety of notes. Finally there is the enharmonic, with the subtlest inflections. It was when I played in the enharmonic genus that I soared above my body.

In the theater I played to set the tone, to help the mood, to support the characters, to keep the chorus in tune, and to move the drama along. If you have never gone to the theater, you must come at sunset, find a place anywhere (it is built so that the sound carries everywhere), feel the hush before the performance and let yourself be carried on the strains of the aulos as it transports you to the world of gods and conflicts, tragedies and comedies. And of course there are the drums, that slide us along the timeline, beating out the rhythms of life itself. Let the music take you where it will.

My life took a turn at the Festival of Paladine. We worship him as having been brought here from the Beyond by the High God. Paladine encourages Soul to be its best, to fly high, to grow in awareness and goodness. It was on that day that I first caught sight of Philolaus, successor of the great Pythagoras, who had settled in Metapontum after his school was destroyed twice, once in Greece, the second time in Croton, very close to this place.

The lead actor gave the sign, and I played softly on my aulos. As the characters processed to the stage, the day seemed a bit more vibrant than usual. I lost myself in the swirl of the melody and the drum beat, like a gentle wind that carried the sound higher and higher. Somehow, listening to the drums, I kept time, and played my part, but my mind was elsewhere, in some better place. When we finished, the philosopher was looking at me. I made my way home.

The next morning my father said to me that Philolaus wanted to meet us at the manteion, at the ninth hour. "The manteion?" I asked. "Why? And why there?"

"He did not say," my father answered, "but we are going. It would be rude to refuse a request from such a virtuous man." He held up a hand to silence my objections. The manteion was a place of prophecy. I knew my horoscope had been written there, but I had been told little else about it.

We were greeted by a porter, who led us to a small internal room. Philolaus welcomed us and asked us to sit on a bench. He told my father he would like to ask me some questions. Father nodded.

"When you play music, where do your thoughts take you?" he asked directly. I was surprised. No one had ever spoken to me in these terms. I think my father was just as surprised. He looked at me as if to tell me to answer truthfully.

"Sometimes," I said, "when I play certain music, I seem to rise above the theater in my mind, and sometimes I visit other places."

He nodded, and asked me if I played the lyre. When I nodded, he opened a large cloth sack and handed me his instrument. "Please play something you love, something in the enharmonic genus," he asked.

His lyre had an extra string compared to the instruments I knew. This gave it a depth I had not heard before. As I played, exploring the richness of the lower sounds, there was a certain gentle shaking in the ether. I began to play and almost immediately soared high above the manteion. To my great shock the philosopher was there waiting for me. "Do you want to go higher?" he asked. I nodded and we flew higher than I had ever imagined, so high that the sea looked like a small pond. "We should return," he said. "I do not want your father to worry."

In fact my father was confused. "What happened?" he asked me.

The sage smiled. "Your son knows Ekstasis," he said simply. "With this music he can leave his body and travel to other states."

"I have heard," my father said, "that your master preached belief in reincarnation."

"Yes," Pilolaus answered easily. Soul is the master of the body, and Soul is immortal. Ekstasis proves it."

This was a lot for my father to consider, but it made sense to me.

"We have only a small school here," Philolaus continued. "I would teach your son geometry, mathematics, music, and yes I would help him direct his travels when Soul leaves the body. If he will come to me daily at the ninth hour I will teach him these things."

My father looked at me. My face was shining. "Then so be it," he said. And I began the golden time of my life.

Ours is a melodious language, words and syllables that distinguish themselves clearly by their contours rather than by heaviness. Philolaus handed me a plectrum. Although I had seen these metal bars I had never used one on a lyre. Say the word "life," he commanded. I did so. "Do you hear the pitch go up and then down again as you say it?" he asked. I nodded. "Good, you can do the same with the plectrum. Use it to bend the string a little bit. This will be like shortening the string. Then relax the plectrum to lower the pitch again. Make your lyre sing the word 'life.'"

I did as he asked, and smiled at the effect. Soon I managed to make musical versions of the three accents: the slight slide upwards, the slide downards, and the movement up and down. I realized that I was expressing myself with sounds in a new way. "Master," I asked, "What is ethos? I have heard it discussed, but I do not fully understand it."

He smiled enigmatically. "The word means place," he began. "Does it refer to a place on your lyre? If so, do the different places on the lyre have different expressive qualities?"

I answered in the affirmative. He continued. "What if that is also true of the places you visit when you leave your body, when you experience Ekstasis? What if those places are different in a way like the sounds on the lyre?"

This was a new idea. "Then each region," I ventured, "has its own ethos, its own sound and its own virtues." He nodded. "So I am able to visit some of them..."

"By attuning yourself through the sounds, and the virtues."

"And you took me to a higher place..."

"In exactly that way."

"Teach me, master, teach me this wisdom."

"And," he asked seriously, "What would you do with this wisdom if I were to teach it you, if I were to teach you the truths that Pythagoras taught me?"

I was confused. I could not think of an answer.

"Tomorrow," he said briefly, "meet me at the manteion, at the ninth hour, and bring a fruit," and he walked away.

I could hardly sleep that night. There is a saying among us that "Bad friends bring bad fruit." I scoured the market and chose the most perfect pomegranate I could find. I placed it on a shelf, and stretched myself out to dream, but I could not sleep. Would he teach me these mysteries?

I bathed and dressed in the morning, and met him at the ninth hour. He uncovered his lyre and began to play. As he sounded the beautiful notes I rose and he rose with me. Both of us had left our bodies. He pointed to something in the distance and in a moment we were there.

I did not recognize the surroundings or the men. They were debating earnestly. Suddenly one of them turned to me, "But is that not what you said?" he asked. Shocked, I left the scene and returned to my body in the manteion.

"How," Philolaus asked, "would your life be different if you thought of yourself as an initiate in the Mysteries of Pythagoras, which derive from the mysteries of Hermes?"

"I think it would be very different," I answered.

"Well," he mused, "you are." Remember the law of silence concerning the mysteries. Did you bring fruit?"

I handed him the pomegranate. "Ah," he said, "it is like you, full of the seeds that will be developed into wisdom."

We continued. During the day I studied with Philolaus. He taught me mathematics, geometry, music, proportions, and we went farther in Ekstasis. In the evening I earned money playing in the theater, and I continued my out of body travel. Often I encountered Philolaus as a travelled high above the scene.

I found that he did not reveal things to me directly. Instead, he wanted me to realize them on my own, or, sometimes, guided by his questions. "Tell me about the theater," he said one day. "How is it that different instruments sound well together?"

"We tune before the performance," I answered, wondering where this was going. The aulos sets the pitch, because once the reed is shaved in a way that makes the best sound, its pitch cannot be altered. The stringed instruments, the lyre and the kithara, alter the tension of their strings until they match the pitch of the aulos." I had no idea where this discussion was going, as was often the case with Philolaus.

"The reed," he continued, "comes from a plant, so it comes from the earth. But you cut it, to prepare it to receive your breath to make the sound."

"Yes," I agreed, sensing he was working his way to something important.

"Where does your breath come from?" he queried.

"From the air."

"Which comes from..."

"The ether," I said.

"And it comes from ..."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Spirit? God?"

"If the body is an instrument, what is the Soul?"

I had not considered this, and it took me by surprise, but suddenly it struck me. "Soul is the mode, the harmonia, that governs the body, and that rules above it."

He considered my answer carefully, and nodded. "You said that tuning starts with the aulos, that when the sound is right, the reed is not altered further."

"Yes," I said, "I cut the reed and shave it to make the best sound, then I try it on the instrument. I alter it again and again until it is right. When both halves of my instrument vibrate and resonate together beautifully, I know that it is right."

He seemed pleased with this answer. "So the breath from the ether, the air from God, vibrates in your instrument, when the reed is correctly cut and tuned. Then all are in alignment with the harmonia of the aulos, and the sound is beautiful." I was amazed at this. "Then," he continued, the sound travels to the listeners and, if they are attuned to it, the sound can carry them back to the ether, as it does you, and me." The simplicity of this truth was overwhelming.

"Does the music continue past the instrument?" the next point in his reasoning.

"Yes," I answered readily, "it must be so because the instrument is only the starting point, or perhaps more accurately the midpoint."

He smiled at this. "Good, then the music can continue without the instrument."

"Yes," I was excited, finally sensing where he was going.

"And in a similar way, can Soul survive without the body, beyond death?"

"Yes!" I shouted.

"I have a friend who has a theater in Athens. I want you to go to him and work there. You will meet Socrates, and he will complete your training. He is one of the men you saw in your vision, and he is my successor. Take this coin and show it to those you meet as an introduction." The coin had an image of Hermes, with a line attached to the crook, and an indentation on the obverse. I did not want to leave Philolaus, and I said so, but he simply said, "It is time."

The next morning I said my good-byes and my master walked with me to the port. He had done so much for so many in Metapontum it was easy for him to find me passage to Athens. He placed me on the ship of a captain whose wife he had healed of sickness. Thalassa, the sea, she is mother to us all, and I sailed gracefully to my new home. As he said farewell he gave me his beloved lyre. I wanted to refuse, but he pressed it on me. "This is a mission I am sending you on," he explained. "Socrates is an adept, but his school needs your understanding of music." I did not know whether he meant that, or he wanted to lessen the sadness I felt at leaving him.

The sea voyage was easy. When I disembarked, The captain made sure that I found Socrates. Actually it was not that hard. He was teaching and debating in the agora, the open area in the center of the city. In the end that is what caused his troubles. I knew him from the vision, and he seemed to recognize me right away. When I showed him the coin he bid me stay with him in his house, a large villa on the outskirts of the city. His wife was a noblewoman, I could tell by her name, Xanthippe, which means 'Yellow Horse,' meaning that she was off that class of Athenians who had the leisure and wealth to interest themselves in owning race horses. Socrates had many wealthy friends, and one of them owned a large theater that needed a musician.

Some of his closest students stayed in a wing of the house apart from the main residence, and I joined them. We met with Socrates for a short time most evenings. He called this the convivium. He explained that each member contributed something. Some had particular skill in reasoning or debating. I would add my musical gifts, he explained. And there was a young man named Plato whose contribution was writing down some of the things that were said on a wax tablet, particularly if some conclusion would be reached. Plato was very quiet.

One night I dreamt of Philolaus. It seemed that he had flown so high he encountered the sun and moon, and would not return to earth. I awoke in distress. Almost immediately a servant knocked on my door and summoned me to the central area of the house. He gave me spiced herbs to drink. Socrates himself came in a few moments. "Do you understand?" he asked.

"Has he died?" I asked in shock.

"He has passed to another world," Socrates explained, "and will not return. I am sorry for our loss."

"Do the others know?" I asked.

"No, only you and I because we are his students, his initiates of the close circle."

"I did not know," I said, "that you and he had even met."

"Oh not on this earth," he remarked. "We communed beyond where eagles fly."

Socrates began to come to the theater to listen to my playing. It was a play by Aeschylus: "God is the ether and God is the earth. God is the sky, and all things above these." At first he seemed transfixed, then I realized he had the same skill as Philolaus in meeting me in a higher reality. At the end of the performance he asked me to explain the powers of music and the significance to the convivium. Of course I agreed.

Talking to the convivium was something I found awkward, at first, especially seeing Plato with his wax tablet, waiting for something he deemed important to be said. I explained what I understood of attunement: that the body can be compared to an instrument, and Soul can be thought of as the harmonia, or the music itself. I explained instruments and bodies are mortal, they are in time, but Soul and music are immortal because they are in eternity. One cannot be both in eternity and in time.

Socrates was pleased, and added that "If you let me make a nation's music, I care not who may make its laws."

Plato certainly wrote that down. Then our master asked me to play on the lyre. I realized that it was a kind of test, not for me, but for the others. I lifted the cover from the instrument, and began to play on the lowest string. Some of the convivium left their bodies, and joined me with Socrates.

Socrates said, "This teaching is important, and it could be dangerous. I remind you all of the Law of Silence. And remember, no one is to name the city from which our musician comes, or his birth name. He is to be called simply Simmias."

My instruction continued. On the feast of Paladine I was given the privilege of dining with Socrates and Xanthippe in their dining room in the center of the house. A servant brought me a new robe and sandals for the occasion. I reviewed in my mind all the manners that I had learned and hoped that the ways of Metapontum would be appropriate at the table of a noblewoman of Athens and her husband, the world's greatest thinker.

I arrived respectfully early and was admitted to the room. The plain table was covered with white linen and set for four. The masters of the house would sit at the ends, but who would take the fourth place?

Soon the hosts arrived, and with them a sight that took my breath from me. Xanthippe introduced her as her niece, named Philomena. I bowed deeply and we took our seats. I judged her to be about my age. She was dressed simply and elegantly. Her jewellry caught the light of the candles. Her eyes were a brown so deep they seemed black. I caught myself staring at them, then lowered my gaze, but the air between us continued to tremble, and I felt the warmth of her energy heat my heart.

She conversed intelligently, and sometimes passionately, about many subjects. She was confident, without being proud. I am sure the meal must have been fine, but I do not remember any of it. I believe my table etiquette was correct, because I watched myself carefully. From time to time I noticed Xanthippe scrutinizing sometimes me, sometimes her niece. After the last course, the great lady spoke to me, "My husband tells me that you have been making a new piece of music. May we hear it?"

How did he know? I had said nothing of it. I rose from the table and picked up my instrument and the plectrum. I began on the lyre and mingled my own voice with its quiet, solemn strains:

'Noblest of teachers

'Wisest of men

'You travel freely

'Through all the worlds

'How can I follow?

'How can I follow you to eternity when I dwell here in time?

'I can only offer my thanks and devotion.'

I finished the piece on the lyre, a musical conclusion that travelled from the lowest string of the instrument to the highest, and I let the sound ring, and fade away.

"Is this piece an epitaph for Philolaus?" Socrates asked.

"No master, it is a hymn for you," I replied. The room was silent for a few moments. Socrates and Xanthippe excused themselves and withdrew behind a screen.

"Your music is beyond beautiful," Philomena said, "and you are so expressive."

"Flattery would be too vulgar," I began, "for a lady of your high mind and rare qualities. I will merely express my admiration of your every aspect, and thank you for your warm and earnest presence tonight. I count myself very fortunate to have met you. May I laud your form, your mind, and your Soul?"

She was on her guard for this type of speech. Probably she had heard such before. "You may, but if you have observed my form and mind, I hardly think you can know my Soul."

"It is just a sense," I allowed.

"Well my uncle's students, or many of them, practice Ekstasis. Do you?"

I realized that she was included within the circle of silence. I nodded briefly.

"Then perhaps you really can sense something of my inner self," she allowed. "Where did you learn your art? Where did you learn Ekstasis? Where are you from?"

I knew it would be useless to try to keep secrets from her, and I knew that I did not want to. "I am from Metapontum," I explained. "I studied with Philolaus."

"You studied with the successor of Pythagoras," she was impressed. I think she read my thoughts in the ensuing silence. If so, she would have taken in my heated impressions of herself.

Xanthippe and Socrates returned. "I hope the two of you are getting along," she probed. "Yes, I think you are. No anise tonight, I think the room is already warm enough. Let's all to sleep. We shall talk again tomorrow."

I did not fall asleep at first. When I did I entered a vivid dream. I seemed to be in a large hall with many people. Philomena was there, and there was a priest. She offered me her right hand, a wedding ceremony! I awoke with a shock. Had the evening been an exploration of a possible match? If so, although arranged, both Xanthippe and Philomena would have to approve, and why would Xanthippe approve of a student from Metapontum with no wealth of his own, only what he earned with music? For that matter, why would a high born, cultivated young lady like Philomena want to marry me? It was not credible.

At dawn, I was summoned to speak with Socrates in the orchard. "Did you remember your dream?" he asked. I nodded. "Good," he remarked. I believe you and my niece would be a perfect match. But it will not be safe for you here. Her parents are in Thebes. You will reside there."

"Why would it not be safe?" I asked, concerned.

"Because of my teachings," he explained. "I have seen the future. I must continue to speak my truths, but there will come a day when my enemies will gather to do me harm. I do not want you or my niece anywhere near when that happens, nor do I want your name to be associated with mine in any way. The risk is too great."

"Master, let me stay and fight for you," I begged.

"There will be no fighting of the sort you are imagining," he replied kindly. "Debating, arguing, but I can undertake that. It is something that must happen, whether I like it or not. You and Philomena must continue the teachings, but in Thebes, not here."

Something in his quiet tone made his words ring true for me, and I could find nothing to say.

Philomena and I were married, and returned to her house in Thebes. Wife and husband, are they not when aligned, like the two tubes of the aulos, animated by the same breath, and set in motion by the same reed, sounding in harmony? A few months later there was the trial in Athens. Plato wrote a faithful account of that, and of our master's last days when he was forced to drink the hemlock. He sent word to Thebes by a servant that he did not want us to be caught up in the madness of his persecution and execution. Philomena's family agreed readily. I agreed very reluctantly.

In Thebes I taught the lyre and the aulos. In secret Philomena and I instructed a very few students in the science of Ekstasis. I honored my mentor by writing some dialogues on music and the Soul. I hope that they survive, but more importantly, I hope that the teachings of Ekstasis will continue, and I believe that they will, because I know from whence they come.

Simmias (yet not Simmias), Musician of Thebes (yet from Metapontum)