This lecture was given to the Temenos Academy on Tuesday 19th October 2021 - a particular delight as it was on its perennial philosophy course that the Divine Comedy first began to open up to me. See here for more details - https://www.temenosacademy.org
I make some remarks on the Inferno and Purgatorio first, about how spiritual intelligence recognises the significance of now and knowing yourself.
However, as we live in an age that finds the Paradiso increasingly incomprehensible, most of the lecture looks at the 10 domains of paradise visited by Dante and what they represent for the development of his spiritual intelligence.
In short, he sees how reality is characterised by abundance not scarcity, generosity not possessiveness, and comedy not tragedy - not because of any glib universalism, but because love, light and life can embrace hate, darkness and death.
Dante enters:
- The Moon in which he learns of qualities as guides, over quantities
- Mercury in which he learns of harmonising with divine light
- Venus in which he learns the essence of eros
- The Sun in which he learns of the passion that unites difference
- Mars in which he learns the true nature of sacrifice
- Jupiter in which he learns how individuality links to all
- Saturn in which he learns the necessity of seeing the eternal face
- The Fixed Stars in which he learns of radiating with all beings
- The Primum Mobile in which he learns of speaking with the divine voice
- The Empyrean in which he learns of the nature of eternity.
