# Pythagoras & His Bizarre Cult

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Einzelgänger
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Welcome to the journey. Imagine walking the streets of 6th-century BC Croton, a Greek city in Southern Italy. A small elite of aristocrats rules the town, and they aren’t doing all that well of a job. Indeed, Croton’s economy is strong, the city is influential in the region, and it has established itself as a respected center of learning. But beneath the surface, cracks are beginning to show. Decadence is everywhere. Violence is on the rise. And you find yourself resentful about the moral decay you’re witnessing. You wonder: where is this all heading? Then, a stranger walks by. A handsome man, followed by a group of people who appear to be his students. He moves his arms in a captivating way, as he seems to lecture his followers about matters of utmost significance. There’s something about him. As if he’s not entirely human; almost divine. You can’t help but draw closer to him, as you feel he knows something, a certain wisdom that might ease your troubled mind. As you look over your shoulder, you continue your walk, and can’t help but ask yourself: Did I just see a regular man or a god? After doing some inquiry in a local tavern, you quickly find out that the man you just saw is well known among the Crotonians. But the more questions you ask about his whereabouts, about what he’s doing in Croton, and what’s up with the group of people following him, the more mysterious it gets. A confident bartender exclaims that this man, named Pythagoras, is a sage who teaches a way of life that brings one closer to the gods. He traveled to many far places where he acquired a treasure of ancient wisdom and knowledge about numbers, stars, and music. A guest, although quite drunk, tells you that Pythagoras is, in fact, a god. He’s no less than the son of Apollo, the god of rational beauty and order. A local politician entered the conversation, saying that Pythagoras and his followers are weird. And, above all, they’re a dangerous bunch, as they try to seize power in Croton and beyond, imposing their ideologies and practices upon everyone. To him, he wasn’t a god at all: just a charlatan thirsty for power, who, quite frankly, should be exiled. “He’s a lunatic,” someone yells from the back of the tavern. Okay, I’m just sketching an image of how an encounter with Pythagoras and his world could be, based on the many sources about his life, appearance, ideas, and cult. No one really knows for sure what he was truly like. References from his own time are rare. Most of the material about him is fragmented or written centuries after his death, and probably not very reliable. Due to the many conflicting and vague historical records, he remains a mysterious figure. And this made it frustrating to study him, because no matter what people wrote about him, it may very well be nonsense. But I took a shot. During my research, I felt that his main theory about the universe, as well as his role as cult leader, interests me the most. This episode will focus on these aspects, and hopefully, we’ll learn something useful for our own lives as well. This is the Journey of Ideas. My name is Stefan, also known as Einzelgänger. This is not an AI voice. I’m a real person. And I’m taking you on a long trip. We’re exploring the ideas of the many great thinkers of history, as well as the times and places in which they lived. Right now, we’re at the very beginning of Western philosophy. This episode is available as an audio podcast on Spotify, Substack, Apple, and several other platforms, and as a full visual version with lovely background music on the Einzelgänger YouTube channel. To stay updated on all my content, subscribe to my newsletter on Substack or journeyofideas. com. I hope you’ll enjoy the episode. We have just left Miletus, where we spent some time learning more about the very first Western philosophers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Our leading destination is Croton, where Pythagoras lived for a long time, and where his mysterious cult arose. However, I feel it’s necessary to learn a bit more about his youth and travels, as they shaped the philosopher and cult leader he became later in life. So, we’ll make a first stop in the region where he spent his childhood.

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

Before we start, I’ll emphasize once more that finding reliable information about Pythagoras is a challenge. Many things are wrongly attributed to him. Take, for example, the very thing most people know Pythagoras from, the Pythagorean theorem, which most of us have learned in math class. You know, that right-angled triangle, A² + B² = C². It shows that you can figure out the longest side of such a triangle by squaring the two shorter sides, adding them together, and then taking the square root. I’ve always assumed that the reason we call it the Pythagorean theorem is that it was invented by the guy after whom it is named: Pythagoras. But while reading about him, I learned that Pythagoras most likely did not invent it! In fact, there’s evidence that other civilizations, such as the Babylonians, Ancient Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese, were already aware of this brilliant piece of mathematics, long before Pythagoras walked the Earth. Now, the questionable attribution of the theorem is just one example among many theories, ideas, and accomplishments linked to Pythagoras that may not have been his. And there’s so much of this, let’s just say it, “fake news” circulating about him, that what’s truly coming from Pythagoras himself is severely obscured. He also didn’t leave any writings himself, so that doesn’t help either. Scholars refer to this as the “Pythagorean problem. ” I'll save the explanation of how and why this problem arose for later in this episode. It’s pretty interesting, in my opinion. Now, the Pythagorean problem doesn’t necessarily mean that everything we hear about him is false. Some sources may be reliable. But almost all are questionable. Some scholars even doubt he existed at all. So, here’s my approach: I won’t provide a strict biography. Instead, I’ll sketch Pythagoras and his cult as the ancients saw and described him: through stories, perceptions, and rumors. Not complete, not certain, but enough to give you an idea of who he might have been, based mainly on academic sources, which are listed below the transcript on Substack, by the way. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s set sail for our first destination. Whenever I hear the name Samos, I think about this sweet, cold, white wine of the same name they serve in a Greek restaurant in my hometown, where I used to drink it as a dessert after eating a giant plate of Greek dishes such as souvlaki, souzouki, gyros… always with a big dollop of tzatziki. Just delicious. But Samos is actually a place. It’s an island in Greece. And back then, it was part of Ionia, not that far from Miletus. The inhabitants of Samos are called Samians. We’re in the early sixth century BC. Watching from the deck, we see a long shoreline with natural harbours and bays, and a cobalt blue sea. From the coast, we see mountains covered in thick layers of forest. We arrive at the bustling port of Samos, a flourishing and cosmopolitan city, where people wander the streets in snow-white tunics, as legend has it. The island was experiencing a golden age. Traders brought goods from many foreign places, including carpets from Mesopotamia, grain from Egypt, and glassware from Phoenicia. In this environment, amidst a region inhabited by Greeks but drenched with foreign influences, Pythagoras was born and spent his childhood. Third-century biographer and philosopher Iamblichus wrote extensively about Pythagoras, apparently in ten volumes. He was a true fanboy. In his account, he mentioned the Pythia, which was the title of the high priestess of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. As you may know, Delphi was famous for its oracle. This Pythia actually was the oracle, the lady who delivered Apollo’s prophecies. One day, a woman named Parthenis entered the temple. The oracle, probably expecting her visit, made a curious revelation, at least, according to the account of Iamblichus, who claimed that she would give birth to a son, who would be (and I quote)... “... surpassingly beautiful and wise, and of the greatest benefit to the human race in everything pertaining to human achievements”. Pythagoras’ father, whose name was Mnesarchus, must have been very proud after hearing that his son would be such a remarkable person. So

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

to honor the oracle and Apollo, he named his son Pythagoras, which means something like ‘predicted by the Pythia’ or ‘who speaks the truth like the Pythia. ’ Pythagoras’ parents were wealthy. His father was a merchant seaman who brought home goods from faraway places. Poverty clearly didn’t restrain Pythagoras. And his parents’ wealth enabled him to receive a good education from great teachers. Ionia, as a cosmopolitan environment, provided him with numerous cultural stimuli and a wide range of knowledge. Pythagoras grew into a brilliant, good-looking man. Iamblichus, the fanboy he was, described him as “... the most beautiful and godlike of all those that have been celebrated in the annals of history. ” Apparently, at some point, Pythagoras caught the travel bug. Most agree that he went to Egypt, where he spent years undergoing extensive education, and even managed to integrate into the local culture and customs (something considered very rare for a foreigner), and some claim that the pharaoh himself even taught him. Other stories tell that he went to Phoenicia and Syria, visited the Arabs, and was a prisoner of war in Babylon. And that he studied under sages in India, met with Zarathustra, associated with Persian magicians, and interacted with the Jews. During his travels, he likely gained a wealth of knowledge in mathematics, astronomy, and even music, and was exposed to exotic religions. He presumably roamed around in Greece, too. He was likely familiar with Thales, the first Western philosopher, and may have studied with Anaximander in Miletus. Pythagoras, curious as he was, spent a significant part of his life in all kinds of places, with all sorts of teachers, and brought what he learned back to Greece. After a long absence, he returned to Samos. Even though not many people recognized him, he was welcomed with open arms. According to Iamblichus, “he was not less admired than before. For he appeared to them to be more beautiful and wise, and to possess a divine gracefulness in a more eminent degree. ” A man named Porphyry was another major biographer of Pythagoras, an admirer but not as much of a fanboy as Iamblichus. He wrote that Pythagoras opened a school in his home country, the ‘Semicircles’, where Samians could meet and talk about matters of interest. Unfortunately, things were changing for the worse in Samos. Although an aristocratic elite had ruled the island during Pythagoras’ youth, a man named Polycrates took power and established a tyranny. Samos continued to flourish, but it did so with violence and harsh crackdowns against the opposition; that’s how tyrannies work, apparently. When Pythagoras was around forty years of age, the tyranny became so violent and unbearable that he decided to leave. He journeyed to Italy, a land where his teachings found fertile ground, and where his cult would take root. We’ve arrived in the city of Croton in Southern Italy, where Pythagoras set foot and began to spread his teachings. Croton was a Greek colonial city with a population of between 50,000 and 80,000 inhabitants around 500 BC and was highly influential in the region. Pythagoras’ arrival came with a bang. The Crotonians welcomed the stranger, whose presence, as described by Porphyry, was that of a “free man, tall and graceful in both speech and gesture. ” His charisma and extraordinary appearance have often been pronounced by those who wrote about him, and must have left a deep impression on those who crossed his path. He’s said to have worn a white robe held together by a golden ornament, and he had a golden thigh, a sign of his divine roots. Based on the knowledge he had gathered abroad and deeply influenced by Orphism, an ancient Greek religious movement, he came to teach. It didn’t take long before he amassed a large number of followers in Croton and neighbouring territories: men and women, young and old, from all walks of life. Pythagoras didn’t just want to spread knowledge for the sake of education; he wanted people to live his teachings, to use them to improve their lives. So, he offered them a way, and they practiced under his guidance, together with like-minded people.

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

But, unlike many religious traditions, Pythagoras’ activities weren’t very open and accessible. He and his followers were shrouded in mystery; they generally kept their teachings and practices a secret. And people couldn’t just join; the selection was strict. Initiates were to remain silent; possibly a couple of years. In Croton, Pythagoras was building himself a cult. Throughout the ages, countless rituals, customs, ideas, and beliefs have been attributed to this cult. One of the most notable is a prohibition on eating beans. Beans? Yes, beans. No one really knows why. Some say it was for health reasons. Others suggest it was simply because beans make people fart, and that was seen as a bad sign. Another theory suggests that beans and humans were thought to be related, so eating beans was perceived as almost like eating human flesh. There’s this strange story about an ox eating beans. Pythagoras came across this animal eating green beans in a bean field. So, he went up to the oxherd and advised him to tell the ox to abstain from beans. The oxherd ridiculed Pythagoras, telling him he didn’t speak ox language. So, the bean-averse philosopher went to the ox and whispered something in his ear. The ox then left the bean field and never touched beans again, and lived to an extreme old age. And he was declared sacred. Food was a ‘thing’ in the cult. Beans weren’t the only form of nutrition Pythagoras taught his followers to abstain from. Meat, fish, eggs, and alcohol were a no-go. Instead, they followed a vegetarian diet. The reason Pythagoras was so focused on diet relates directly to his belief in the transmigration of souls, which is essentially reincarnation, and also explains why his followers had to refrain from wearing animal skins as clothing. Pythagoras thought that after a body dies, the soul lives on. And the soul could go from human to human, but also from human to animal and vice versa. One day, he saw someone beating a puppy. He intervened and said, “Stop! Don’t hit it! It’s the soul of a friend of mine. I knew it when I heard it cry. ” And that’s why eating meat was not allowed. After all, you never knew if you were eating your grandma for dinner. And Pythagoras even claimed to remember some of his own past lives. He claimed to have lived as Aethalides, son of the god Hermes, as well as Euphorbus, a hero of the Trojan War, and as Pyrrhus, a fisherman. Within the cult, personal possessions were also not allowed; everything was shared, which surely stood in sharp contrast to the lives of many Greeks (including Pythagoras’ own parents) who often accumulated a lot of wealth. And the wealthy usually ate a lot of meat, by the way. So, the cult was a countermovement; they sought to live better lives, different from the norm, going against the grain. They opposed the decadence and moral decline around them, choosing instead moderation and simplicity. They wanted to purify themselves. They sought harmony with the cosmos and aimed for a good rebirth. To achieve this, they engaged in rituals and practices and sacrificed at shrines. Some claim they meditated, used mantras, and performed exercises resembling dervish turning, a practice done still today by Islamic Sufi mystics. Others speculate they took psychedelics to release parts of the brain. Oh, and they had strict rules to live by, some of which were pretty strange. Here are some examples: It is forbidden to cut one’s hair or nails during a festival. When blood is involuntarily shed in the shrine, it must be cleaned up with gold or with seawater. When it thunders, touch the earth. One should enter shrines on the right side and leave them on the left. Hopefully, by now, you have at least some idea of the cult. But what, exactly, was the meaning behind their practices? This talk of harmony and purification… What did it really amount to? Was there an underlying philosophy that gave shape to all of this? What characterized the bean-avoiding followers of Pythagoras, and set them apart from other religious groups, was their fascination with numbers. Hence

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

some people refer to it as a ‘math cult’. Just as his predecessors, Pythagoras was interested in the arche, the first principle of the universe. He wanted to find out what’s behind the universe, how it exactly works, and thus we could assume he wasn’t quite satisfied with previous explanations. We can only imagine how he must have walked around in faraway places, such as Egypt or Babylon, or perhaps closer to home, like Samos or Croton, and suddenly came to a profound insight: everything in existence had some form of mathematical pattern behind it. Take music, for example. One day, he must have been listening to someone playing a lyre or even tinkering with the instrument himself… however it happened, he discovered that the length of a lyre string determines the tone it produces. Tones could be measured, music could be calculated. So, behind the veil of a beautiful melody that touches the soul and arouses the emotions, Pythagoras began to see numbers and ratios. It’s a bit like that moment in the Matrix when Neo suddenly sees all the green code as being the underlying source of it all. And when I think of it, it’s not even that different from what Pythagoras believed. So, for him, the ‘arche’ was pretty apparent. Whereas Thales believed everything comes from water, Anaximander believed that everything comes from the boundless, and Anaximenes thought that the source of everything is air; Pythagoras claimed it was number. He assumed a rational universe where numbers govern everything. There’s harmony, based on numbers. As written by Robin Waterfield, author of the book ‘The First Philosophers’: At any rate, on Aristotle’s evidence, according to the Pythagoreans things are numbers, things are like numbers, and the elements of number, the limit and the unlimited, or the even and the odd, are the elements of all things. “All things accord in number,” Pythagoras used to say to his disciples, wrote Iamblichus, who also described how the tetractys, which is a little triangle of ten dots: one, on top, then two, then three, then four at the bottom, basically was considered the most sacred symbol to them. And thus, their practices are believed to have incorporated mathematical elements. Mathematics became a spiritual exercise. Numbers were elevated from mere usefulness to the divine. Here’s my interpretation of the essence of the cult, based on what I’ve read: through purification, seeking harmony with a rational universe governed by numbers, and eventually, liberating themselves from the cycle of rebirth and uniting with the divine. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? As the cult grew more influential in the region, it faced increasing opposition. Pythagoras and his followers had already infiltrated politics. People distrusted them due to their secrecy. Many disliked their austere way of life, which conflicted with the more luxurious and free lifestyle of the Crotonians. Eventually, violent uprisings erupted in Croton (and other cities) against Pythagoras and his followers. Houses and places where they gathered were attacked and set on fire. They were prosecuted and expelled. Pythagoras would have fled to the city of Metapontum, where he died not long after; some speculate he starved himself to death in a temple. His cult collapsed, but remnants lived on as scattered groups across southern Italy, eventually dying out. However, in the first century AD, the Pythagoreans experienced a revival, also known as Neopythagoreanism, which flourished for several centuries. Also, at some point, his later followers split into two groups, the akousmatikoi and mathematikoi. The akousmatikoi focused on the religious aspects of Pythagoras’ teachings and his way of life, but weren’t particularly interested in the philosophical side of it. In contrast, the mathematikoi explored the more intellectual aspects and were involved in mathematics, music, and astronomy. After Pythagoras’ death, something strange started to happen among his later followers. They began to attribute numerous things, including sayings, writings, and theories, to his name. And thus arose the Pythagorean problem: the difficulty of distinguishing Pythagoras’ own ideas from those of the later Pythagoreans or even outsiders. But why? Why would they do this?

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_RnBChfBqA&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 27:00)

Suppose you wrote a book, and it’s a good book, and you’re proud of it… Why would you put the name of your teacher on it, especially when he’s been dead for hundreds of years? As I find this phenomenon interesting, let’s investigate this further. I’ve always been fascinated by cults and how these cult leaders build such large followings of obedient sheep who just accept everything they say as gospel. Unfortunately, cults still exist. Despite all our progress as a species and the unprecedented knowledge we now have, people still fall for messiah-like figures claiming to possess some hidden truth, and who, more often than not, are simply after power and narcissistic supply. When it comes to Pythagoras, the label ‘cult leader’ wasn’t exaggerated. Based on how he’s described, he truly had the characteristics of one. Just like, let’s say, Charles Manson, he was very charismatic and a compelling speaker, whose very presence could just suck people into his circle of influence. Of course, Pythagoras wasn’t leading people into murder, as far as we know, but they surely had things in common in terms of approach. Like Manson, he created a closed community centered on himself, separated from the rest of society, with strict rules. They likely operated like a shared household in which they emotionally bonded with each other. Absolute obedience was expected, and leaving the cult came with unfortunate consequences. Pythagoras is said to have punished apostates and those who broke the rule of secrecy or proved to be unworthy as members. And this happened through a ritual of separation, which involved erecting a gravestone for them. Yes, they were treated as if they were dead, which, in my opinion, isn’t a very nice way to say goodbye.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/24054*