| Plato's Esoteric Science of Dialectical Interchange Maieutic Psychagogy |
Plato teaches that Dialectical Interchange is esoteric in several different senses. First, the true meaning and transformative power of Dialectical Interchange can only be unlocked and applied by a Perennialist savant, and persons can only effectively participate in dialectic if they have effective knowledge of the Perennial Tradition. 1
"Esoteric knowledge can be given only to those who seek, only to those who have been seeking it with a certain amount of consciousness, that is, with an understanding of how it differs from ordinary knowledge and how it can be found . . . ThisDialectical Interchange involves an advanced, esoteric knowledge about how to achieve "the separation of the soul and body." Plato's teachings concerning Dialectical Interchange are esoteric in that their discernment requires advanced personal development in comprehension of and practice of the Perennial Tradition, the only source of this wisdom.preliminary knowledge can be gained by ordinary means, from existing and known literature, easily accessible to all. And the acquisition of this preliminary knowledge may be regarded as the first test. Only those who pass this first test, those, that is, who acquire the necessary knowledge from the material accessible to all, may hope to take the next step, at which point direct individual help will be accorded them. A man may hope to approach esotericism if he has acquired a right understanding from ordinary knowledge, that is, if he can find his way through the labyrinth of contradictory systems, theories and hypotheses, and understanding their general meaning and general significance. This test is something like a competitive examination open to the whole human race, and the idea of a competitive examination alone explains why the esoteric circle appears reluctant to help humanity. It is not reluctant. All that is possible is done to help men, but men will not or cannot make the necessary efforts themselves. And they cannot be helped by force."
P. D. Ouspensky, A New Model of the Universe, 1931
Plato teaches that Dialectical Interchange is esoteric, secondly, in that it is personal. Platonic dialectical interchange, as practiced by a Perennialist teacher, inevitably brings out both the best--and the worst--in its participants. A person may appear, during certain moments in dialectical interchange, to be a rational, intelligent, loving person. But, the magic of dialectical interchange may reveal that that person is also (or actually) an irrational, stupid, unloving person. Within the Perennial Tradition, an advanced Perennialist teacher develops knowledge about an individual from the teacher's assessment of the person's entire mental, emotional, physical, psychic, and spiritual being. Some of this knowledge derives from the teacher's dialectical interchange with the student. Such personal knowledge of the individual is treated as private or esoteric knowledge.
Such esoteric knowledge about an individual originates from a Perennialist teacher assessing an individual's reactions to and interactions with the teacher's actions, interchanges, ideas, assessments, diagnoses, statements, writings, and assignments, and distilling the essence of what the individual's reactions and interactions reveal about that person. Such esoteric knowledge is potentially dangerous, if used improperly, so it is not even shared with the person unless:
- The individual requests the information and
- The teacher assesses that the individual is capable of:
- Receiving the information without negative effect: e.g. emotional turmoil: depression, hyper-elation; misinterpretation; misuse; etc.
- Using the information to positive effect: e.g. realistic self-assessment and genuine self-transformation
If esoteric, personal knowledge were made available to persons under mental and psychic bondage to their debilitating selves, they might allow themselves to become so despondent about their intellectual, moral, or spiritual state that they might judge themselves to be of no worth or incapable of improvement. Or, alternately, they might cling to their pompous, ignorant over-estimation of themselves and dismiss, out of hand, a more knowledgeable assessment of their being.
Some persons might misuse esoteric information as an excuse for rejecting the teacher, his assessment of their state of being, or his recommended remedial assignments, when carefully considering and valuing the teacher's knowledge and actions would be the only real chance the individual would have of ever achieving enlightenment, personal transformation, or even a productive life.
Esoteric knowledge is the essence of Dialectical Interchange: participants sharing esoteric information with one another. This is why Dialectical Interchange is perilous and why an advanced teacher only allows persons to participate in it who have achieved a specific level of intellectual, moral, and spiritual attainment.
Plato's esoteric teaching concerning Dialectical Interchange refers to one of the central concepts of the Perennial Tradition: "dying before you die". Philosophy, the love of and the search for wisdom, is actually practiced through Dialectical Interchange which results in learning to leave the physical body and live in the soul, the spiritual body.
The philosopher--seeker after wisdom--lives in her soul, the higher consciousness. Discerning the essence of philosophy, the seeker gains important clues as to the nature of Plato's esoteric science--what he called Dialectic--and described as maieutic psychagogy:Plato's Socrates, in the dialogues, practiced an extraordinary kind of shared mystical experience in which he served as a psychagogic midwife, overseeing the process of the divulgence of, the bringing into being of new elements: abilities, ideas, feelings, characteristics, inspirations, and images.
- Maieutic: maieûtikos, midwife, one who assists in the delivery of a new being
- Psychagogy: psuchagôgê, from Greek, psûchê, soul, and agogê, transport to or lead out of; the science of helping to bring out (give birth to) new elements (ideas, characteristics, capabilities) from a person's soul or to bring into (transmit to) a person's soul, elements from a higher level of being
" On the part of Socrates, the dialogue is an attempt to submit the others, at least tentatively, to the catharsis of death. The judgment of the dead is thus enacted in part in the dialogue itself, concretely, in the attempt of Socrates to pierce through the 'body' of his interlocutors to their naked souls."
Eric Voegelin, Plato
Both Socrates and the other participants in the dialectical interchange were in a higher state of consciousness. Socrates at times had to work to bring other participants into a higher state, since they were largely unfamiliar with the experience. But his presence and his actions were able to bring them into this higher state--so much so that the participants sometimes spoke of being entranced, charmed, or bewitched, as in this passage from the Meno.
Menon: "You seem to me to be a veritable wizard, casting your spells over me, and I am truly getting bewitched and enchanted, and YOU HAVE STOPPED MY WORLD. "As is clear from the Phaedo and other dialogues, Plato believed that we can only discover truth when we are in a higher consciousness.
"Then when does the soul attain truth?-for in attempting to consider anything in company with the ordinary bodily consciousness she is obviously deceived."
"Must it not, then, be by contemplating in our soul, if at all, that any of the things that possess true being become known to it?
"And surely the soul then contemplates best when none of these things disturb it--neither hearing, nor sight, nor pain, nor pleasure of any kind; but it retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave of the body; and, so far as it can, not communicating or being in contact with it, it aims at the discovery of that which has true being." 2
Such statements as this--occurring throughout Plato's dialogues--should make it clear to us that the search for truth cannot take place in the ordinary bodily consciousness. Yet academics and scholastics throughout history have ignored Plato's declaration and thoughtlessly gone ahead to assume that what Plato was describing in the dialogues as Dialectical Interchange was merely two or more people, in their ordinary state of consciousness, conversing normally about philosophical concepts.
If we're to take Plato at his word, dialectical interchange involves the participants attempting to gain a genuine understanding of "that which has true being"--eternal Forms. Since Plato makes it clear that eternal Forms CANNOT be discovered or understood in the ordinary mind-state, dialectical interchange can occur only when the participants are in a heightened mode of consciousness. This higher state of consciousness can be active at the same time as a person's "ordinary" consciousness and the student or initiate may be unaware that he is a higher state of consciousness.
Plato makes this very clear in the Phaedo:
"Is there or is there not an absolute justice?
"Assuredly there is.
"And an absolute beauty and absolute good?
"Of course.
"But did you ever behold any of them with your eyes?
"Certainly not.
"Or did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense? (and I speak not of these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and of the essence or true nature of everything). Has the reality of them ever been perceived by you through the bodily organs? or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge of their several natures made by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception of the essence of that which he considers?"
| Socrates is making it clear to them that they have had experience with Forms when in dialectical interchange with him, and since they could not have experienced Forms in their ordinary state of consciousness, it must have been in a higher state (even if they were unaware of it). In other words, it is possible for a person to participate in dialectical interchange with a True Philosopher and be unaware that they are in a higher state of consciousness. |
"Certainly.
"And he attains to the knowledge of Forms in their highest purity who goes to each of them with the soul alone, not allowing when in the act of contemplation the intrusion or introduction of sight or any other sense in the company of reason, but with the very light of the soul in her clearness penetrates into the very light of truth in each Form; is not this the sort of man who, if ever man did, is likely to attain the knowledge of true being?"
"After much effort, as names, definitions, sights, and other data of sense, are brought into contact and friction one with another, in the course of scrutiny and kindly testing by men who proceed by question and answer without ill will, with a sudden flash there shines forth understanding about every problem, and an intelligence whose efforts reach the furthest limits of human powers. . . . After long continued interchange between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of understanding, suddenly a light is kindled in the teacher's soul by a flame that leaps to the student's soul, and thereafter sustains itself." 341c
As Plato indicates, not even a great Teacher such as Lynceus can do much to help improve persons with minds "ill-constituted by nature" or minds crippled and corrupted by persons' own depridations. But a Perennialist teacher must give even such persons every chance to attain self-awareness and self-improvement. So, even if it risks persons rejecting the teacher and his assistance, the teacher must share his assessments and his recommended assignments with such persons, because this is likely the only real chance they have for overcoming enslavement to their debilitating selves and improving intellectually, morally, spiritually, and physically. Persons must remain in dialectical interchange with a teacher only because they are convinced that the teacher's "diagnoses" [assessments] of their being are correct--and more discerning and correct than their own personal assessments--and that the teacher's "prescriptions" [recommended activities] are beneficial in that they produce genuine, positive improvement.
Practicing genuine Platonic dialectic requires that there be at least one person at an advanced level within the Perennial Tradition, and prepared participants willing and able to actively engage in the experience to the fullest extent. Such interchange require that each participant speak openly and honestly, holding nothing back out of fear of contradiction or personal criticism. A person cannot participate in true dialectic if he tries to plan his tactics ("I'll hold back on this argument until the end of the debate. . ."), hedge his bets ("I dare not say that, because they would criticize me for such a weak argument. . ."), or seek to defeat an opponent ("His argument on this point is so weak; I'll hit him with this overwhelming fact. . ."). 
And this is as it should be, for how men should live is every man's business, and the role of the specialist and the expert should be only to offer guidance and criticism, to inform, and clarify the judgment of the layman, leaving the final decision up to him. But while the Socratic method makes moral inquiry open to everyone, it makes it easy for no one. It calls not only for the highest degree of mental alertness of which anyone is capable, but also for moral qualities of a high order: sincerity, humility, courage. Socrates expects you to say what you really believe about the way man should live; which implies, among other things, about the way you should live. His method will not work if the opinion you give him is just an opinion, it must be your opinion: the one you stand ready to live by, so that if that opinion should be refuted, your own life or a part of it will be indicted or discredited, shown up to be a muddle, premised on a confusion or a contradiction. To get into the argument when you realize that this is the price you have to pay for it--that in the course of it your ego may experience the unpleasant sensation of a bloody nose--takes courage. To search for moral truth that may prove your own life wrong takes humility, that is not afraid of humiliation. These are the qualities Socrates himself brings to the argument. . ." 
According to Plato, conceiving or thinking is the conversation the soul has with itself in considering things, asking itself questions and answering them. It is possible to practice dialectic as an inner dialogue with one's soul. 
In previous studies, we've seen that Perennialist teachers--such as Plato--adapt higher knowledge to their own time and place and to the capabilities of the people with whom they're dealing. In Plato's time--and until very recently--written engagement in dialectic was impossible.
The Perennialist Teacher and the seeker can interact in a real-time environment, exchanging ideas and evaluations in synchronous or asynchronous mode.