Online Lectures
Neoplatonic Musical Metaphysics: The Voice of the World-Soul by Sebastian F. Moro Tornese
This lecture explores the Neoplatonic conception of the cosmos as a living, musical order shaped by the Demiurge in Plato’s Timaeus and expressed through the harmony of the World-Soul. This cosmological vision presents music as both metaphysical and theurgical, extending beyond therapeutic and educational functions to a deeper, symbolic role in re-enacting the cosmic harmony and its source. By listening to the “voice” of the World-Soul, we may attune ourselves to its structure and thus integrate the soul’s potentialities in alignment with cosmic order. Employing sound and music as theurgic vehicles and articulating this experience through musica speculativa, the soul’s contemplative capacity encounters the harmony of the cosmos, and emotions such as wonder, love, and longing support the development of higher virtues. Music’s presence across all levels of the Neoplatonic hierarchy reveals its power to connect, elevate, and harmonize, fostering a theurgic activation of sympathy with the cosmos as a “happy god” (Tim.34b8-9), and mirroring within the human soul the Demiurge’s “musical” creative activity.
Lecturer Bio:
Sebastian F. Moro Tornese holds a Ph.D. from the University of London (Royal Holloway) in Neoplatonic philosophy of music, focusing on Proclus’ views on cosmic harmony. He pursued postdoctoral projects at Pompeu Fabra University, where he taught aesthetics, and at the University of Barcelona, teaching rhetoric. He is a Research Associate of the Hellenic Institute, RHUL. More on his website: https://sebastianmoro.com
Thomas Taylor: The English Platonist by Adina Bezerita
Thomas Taylor (1758 – 1835) was an English translator of the complete works of Plato, Aristotle and the Orphic fragments. Born in London, he was devotedly self-taught in the study of classics. After working as a bank clerk, he was appointed Secretary of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, the precursor of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), in which capacity he made friends with wealthy patrons who sponsored his many translations.
Taylor’s translations inspired Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, possibly Coleridge, and Yeats. In American editions they were read by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Thomas Moore Johnson (founder of The Platonist Journal), William Torrey Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education, and G. R. S. Mead, secretary to Helena Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society.
In a series of three lectures, we will discuss Thomas Taylor’s influence on a wide range of movements including Idealism, Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and will revisit some of his most illustrious writings.
This event is being held in association with The Fintry Trust.
Saturdays 11th Jan, 15th Feb, 8th Mar 2025
17.00 – 18.15 (London Time)
Corpus Hermeticum
The eternal law has no beginning and no ending and it disappears by turns in several parts of the cosmos; in such fashion again and again ⟲ in the chequered course of time, it manifests itself anew, returning to where it vanished before. As such, the nature of circular movement appears-- all points in a circle are linked together, that you can find no place where the movement begins, for it is evident that all points in a line both precede and follow one another forever. And it is in this manner that time revolves. (Asclepius III, trans. Walter Scott 1924, 355)