Pythagoras was born in the year 580 î.Hr. on the island of Samos, an island in the Aegean Sea.
Its name comes from Pythia, who predicted his coming into the world.
He was a mathematician, philosopher, but also the founder of a school where disciples were initiated into the great mysteries of the world,the “School of Initiation”.
He received a good education and received initiations from the great masters
At the age of 18, he left the island of Samos after participating in the Olympic Games. He goes to Lesbos, where he will receive initiation from great spiritual masters. He continued his journey into Syria and Egip, where he received teaching from priests and mages. He then returned to Greece, where he founded a school of philosophy, religion and science.
Initiation School
Those who were allowed to study at this school went through a rigorous selection and were required to have strict rules imposed on them. The selection of participants in these courses was done by Pythagoras himself. Among the criteria he had in mind were: relationships with his parents, physiognomy, gestures, laughter, the way they behaved, etc.
The disciples had to go through five important stages, during which they could never see their mentor. For Pythagoras, the figure five represented perfection, the symbol being the five-pointed star, hence the five stages of initiation.
The disciples went through several tests – the evidence of silence, meditation, physical and moral purification
The probationary period was three years, after which participants could continue their courses or were rejected.
Those who remained followed a strict way of life. They donated all the school’s belongings, followed a vegetarian diet, dressed as simple and decent as possible. It required maximum seriousness and rigour. It was necessary to study as much as possible and to have as few contacts with persons foreign to this group as possible. The morning began with long walks and they practiced greeting the sun.
In the courses attended by the disciples were not allowed to write, they had to listen and remember. They then passed on the knowledge of other disciples also verbally.
Within the school it was studied: mathematics, astonomy, music, notions of esotericism, symbols, codes about what the inner nature of man meant.
Pythagoras’ favorite themes were: the science of numbers, the consistency of universal evolution, the study of the soul, the closeness to God, the source of universal harmony
Arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy were considered by Pythagoras the four areas underlying human evolution.
For Pythagoras and his his ad her son, the numbers had a spiritual meaning. Pythagoras knew that everything in the universe could be characterized by numbers and saw mathematical relationships in nature, art and music.
Mathematics was understood as a study of proportions. From this perspective he discovered the link between number and music. Following these aspects he remaced one day when he passed in front of a blacksmith’s workshop the rhythmicity of hammer blows on the anvil. Back home he began experimenting with vibrating strings of the same thickness and equally tense, but of different lengths. In this way it came to the conlesson that sounds depend on the number of vibrations. He calculated them and determined that music is nothing more than a numerical relationship between these vibrations, measured by the interval between them. Even silence, he said, is nothing more than music that the human ear does not perceive, because it is continuous, so it has no intervals of pauses that the urche has the ability to distinguish. Planets, like all other moving celestial bodies, produce a “music of the spheres”. Earth is a sphere, Pythagoras said 2,000 years before Copernicus and Galilee, and revolves around its axis from east to west with five zones: Arctic, Antarctic, Hibernian, Summer and Equatorial. Along with the other planets, they form the cosmos.
The school had a deeply mystical character- Pythagoras taught courses on death and the existence of the soul beyond it
Some of his ideas were inspired by the philosophy of the Orient.
That’s where the theory comes from the theory that the soul, being immortal, migrates from one body to another, leaving the dead, purifying itself for a while in Hades, then re-encarnating.
Pythagoras considered that material and spiritual evolution are inverse but parallel movements that determine the evolution of man. Material evolution is God’s manifestation in matter, while spiritual evolution is the elaboration of the spiritual consciousness that generates closeness to God.
Seminarians were divided into outsiders – those who after classes returned home and interns – those who stayed overnight. The former entrusted them to the care of some assistants and only to the others, the esoterics, who constituted the narrow circle of the true initiates, took care of themselves. Even they saw Pythagoras only after four years of apprenticeship. At that time he sent them written and authenticated courses with the formula “authos ephe”, i.e. “he himself said it”. It was only after this expectation that the disciples could finally know their master.
One of his dipoles who stood out was Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius was a prominent personality, a charismatic philosopher, healer, teacher, mystic and miracle worker.
He stood out from a young age for his healing and clairvoyance abilities.
There is a work, a biography written by the ancient author Philostratus, which describes the life of Apollonius and presents him as a “superhuman being, who knew exotic languages, without ever having learned them, could read the minds of all people, understood the language of birds and all animals. He could even predict the future.”
He was born in the town of Tyana in the Greek province of Capadocia (now the town of Bor in southeastern Turkey), into a rich and respected family, with the advantage of a brilliant education.
He traveled a lot, spreading his knowledge.
He led a simple life. He was a vegetarian and practiced passive sexual continence. He didn’t shave, he wore only simple clothes made of flax fabric and slept on the bare ground. His tendency towards asceticism led him to donate his share of his inheritance to his older brother, keeping only a low sum for his basic needs. Then began a period of asceticism in which he did not speak to anyone for five years. It seems that this long period of self-imposed silence has led to major transformations at all levels of his being. At the end of this period, Apollonius was a different man. He turned out to be a very wise man, possessing incredible attributes.
He was contemporary with Jesus Christ, with whom he was often compared
He is said to have been contemporary with Jesus, but there is no historical source to attest that the two of them knew each other.
There are sources that mention the sameness between the two:
*The date of birth of any of them is not known in the first place.
*Both are said to have come from Heaven, to have performed similar miracles, namely healings, exorcisms, and even resurrections from the dead.
* Both have preached peace and love.
*Both were said to have traveled to India and even Apollonius entered Shambala or Agartha.
But of course there were also evinced differences between them.
*Apollonius saw God as the personification of perfect intelligence; therefore taught his disciples that the only way to communicate with divinity was through intellect.
*He considered prayers and sacrifices to be pointless acts, not facilitating communication with God.
He revealed his paranormal caps in numerous circumstances
Apollonius proved in several circumstances his exceptional capabilities acquired during the ascetic period.
In this sense we can mention his participation in the wedding of a younger disciple named Mennipus of Corinth.
He was going to marry a very beautiful and rich woman, who had first appeared to him in a vision.
Apollonius noticed something unusual about the young bride. After watching her for a long time, Apollonius stood up and said out loud that the bride was not a woman, but a Lamia, that is, a female sex demon.
Using his abilities with skill, he was able to prove that both the luxurious ambience of the party and the dishes and wines chosen, even a part of the guests were nothing more than a false reality created by the demonic entity. In front of her disciples and stupefied people, Lamia declared her true identity and had to disappear.
Even today there are sources that say that Apollonius would have been one and the same as the Apostle Peter or even one and the same as Jesus Christ, some going so far as to believe that the image on the shroud of Turin would actually be of Apollonius.
But no doubt it was an exceptional model, which showed courage and abnegation.
He was not afraid to reform the absurd religious practices of the time, nor did he hesitate to confront the most powerful politicians or clerics at the time.