…it seemed a kind of diabolic possession almost. I mean, passion seemed, for the Greeks spoke about it, I mean, ate in Homer, meaning the state of mind which leads to disaster. In the tragedians it just means disaster, but in Homer it means the…

…it, I mean, ate in Homer, meaning the state of mind which leads to disaster. In the tragedians it just means disaster, but in Homer it means the state of mind leading to disaster. And Arte was a daughter of Zeus, whom Zeus, for his own strange and…

…I say in that essay, is a kind of version of the totality. on a very simple-minded level. But my goodness, how good Homer is anyhow. Well, I'll tell you another absolutely sublime writer who has this, which is Chaucer, of course. It's one of the great…

…exceptional display of human power is the circumstance in which there is some kind of upsurge of joy and creativity. Some... What the... Homer called Menos, when some kind of, what he thought of as a kind of divine influx, comes rushing in and raises us,…

…all these phrases and of course in the last phrase we come straight back to the idea of demonic possession which we found in Homer and in the Bible. And it is very significant that we find in these idiomatic phrases this very clear picture of an ego…

…Homeric and biblical idea of a supernatural possession, this time a good possession and not a demonic possession. If you remember, Homer speaks about this supernatural access. of power, which suddenly comes into people. And he also speaks, he also makes an…

…phenomena of artistic inspiration. This Again, this question of artistic inspiration is a very, very ancient idea. We've already noted it in Homer, and in much more primitive peoples does it come, is it found. It's a significant fact that in several of the…

…than the merely self-conscious mind. And it's worth remarking that many great poets in modern times have felt exactly the same as Homer did, or as even much more primitive people than Homer did. Goethe, for example, says, the songs made me, not I the…

…that many great poets in modern times have felt exactly the same as Homer did, or as even much more primitive people than Homer did. Goethe, for example, says, the songs made me, not I the songs. And the French poet Lamartine says, it is not I…

…stories, were provided for him by this strange man storytelling side of the brain. And here it's worthwhile mentioning that when Homer and the poets who followed him asked for inspiration from the muses, they were not asking for poetical skill. They were…

…problem of who am I, and discussing it in terms of the answers which have been given in the past, the answer given by Homer, the answer given by the Old Testament writers, and to some slight extent the answer given in more recent times in Europe. Today…

…in the old times, these knot eyes, were spoken of largely either in physiological or in supernatural terms. We have the idea in Homer of the knot eyes, which are represented by the thumos, this energy of passion in the chest, the phrain, this mental and…

…say, I find entirely incomprehensible. All the more so as for the last 2,000 years, much more since the time of Homer indeed, poets and dramatists and narrative writers have realized the extreme importance of the physique in relation to temperament and…

…us to do all the absurd and preposterous things which we so often find ourselves doing. In a word, the whole theory of Homer is based upon an idea of demonic or divine possession. The gods either intervene directly or else they intervene by some agent…

…and cause us to do these preposterous and dreadful things but there are also besides the bad interventions there are also in Homer good interventions the supernatural powers come and suddenly help us. And there is a word which occurs very frequently in the…

…it could before. And so that we see the two sides of what we should call the unconscious self are represented in Homer by two kinds of supernatural interventions. the good intervention and the bad intervention. And as I say, these interventions may either…

…madness and the erotic madness. These are the three, four beneficent madnesses of which Socrates is talking here. And as I say, Homer treats all these irrational parts of our nature, all the things that we just can't explain. I mean, when we say, well,…

…to the possession hypothesis. And we have to make a, I think it's important to remark that in his own way, Homer was extremely realistic. He was realistic subjectively, shall we say, and not objectively. Subjectively, he was realistic in as much as…

…Weltanschauungs which have been accepted at the moment. For example, the idea of supernatural possession goes on from the time of Homer right through the Christian epoch until at least the 17th century. And then you get another curious moment in history in…

…in which we explain the experiences varies profoundly from age to age. Now we have to go back again for a moment to Homer and to see what exactly is the nature of the self. We talked about these deep irrational drives which are produced by the…

…intervention of supernatural beings. But what is the human personality on which these interventions take place? Well, now the interesting thing in Homer is that as far as he is concerned, there is no such thing as a permanent soul. He doesn't speak about…

…is concerned, there is no such thing as a permanent soul. He doesn't speak about this at all. The word psyche is used by Homer, but it's never used in relation to the mind during a person's lifetime. It is used only of the thing which leaves the body…

…therefore take on a little materiality and are able to talk with him. And this is the only use of the word psyche in Homer. For the rest, the personality is looked at by Homer very much as many modern empirical psychologists look at it, as a kind of…

…with him. And this is the only use of the word psyche in Homer. For the rest, the personality is looked at by Homer very much as many modern empirical psychologists look at it, as a kind of bundle of symbiotic complexes. We can enumerate these complexes…

…much as many modern empirical psychologists look at it, as a kind of bundle of symbiotic complexes. We can enumerate these complexes in Homer. There is the ego, he speaks of the I, which is more or less equivalent to what he calls the noos, the rational…

…human experience without invoking the idea of the wheel. Anyhow, the fact remains that the, The will is simply not there in Homer, nor is it there in most Indian psychology. But there is, as I say, this idea of a multiplicity of semi-independent forces…

…the idea of a multiplicity of souls, of a group of powers loosely bound together and not the idea of a unitary controlling spirit. Homer, of course, was not a philosopher, but he was an extremely acute observer and He was, as I say, in his way, he was…

…or collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Homer doesn't go quite so far in atomizing the the constituent parts of man. He talks about these bundles, these larger…

…sides of man, and that the all the facts of human behavior can be explained in terms of this system of skandhas, just as Homer thought that all the facts of human behavior could be explained in terms of the thumos, phren, noos, and ego, and so on.…

…be explained in terms of the thumos, phren, noos, and ego, and so on. Now, so much for the position of Homer, this position that man has no substantial detachable soul, but is this bundle of semi-independent symbiotic forces, half physiological, half…

…body and the question of course arises what was the reason for this profound change which took place in these four centuries between Homer and Plato. In the past it was fashionable to say that there were, there may be, there had been influences from the…

…or the other phrase, soma frura, body equals prison, which was absolutely opposed to anything which had ever entered the mind of Homer. The body wasn't a prison. It was just part of the personality. But the result is that with the sort of canonization…

…The rewards take place on this earth, and the soul and body are completely joined. The personality is a mind body. And just as Homer has no word for the substantial soul, so I understand Hebrew, at the time of the Old Testament, has no word for the…

…Old Testament in a most realistic way. I mean, there's a deep, again, a kind of proto-empiricism here, which, as in Homer, stresses the great importance of the physiological side of man. And, of course, with the modern developments in Endocrinology we…

…this empirical semi-physiological way of looking at the mind, at the psychology which was current among the Hebrews and in the time of Homer. Well, let us now try to sum up what has been happening. The interesting thing it seems to me is that the…

…to sum up what has been happening. The interesting thing it seems to me is that the history of psychology since the time of Homer and particularly in recent years has taken the form of a kind of spiral. We begin with the the mind body, this thing…

…Arab huts scattered about at the foot of these gigantic buildings. And this same picture occurs again and again. You will get the Homer, for example, speaks about the tall oaks and pines of Sicily, where you can cross the Sicily from one side to the…

…is completely ignored at present, and we may ask why what is the point of classical education I mean after all Virgil and Homer seem a very long way away even Chaucer and Shakespeare seem a very long way away so why bother with classical education well…