Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Cult of Pythagoras

Starting point is 00:00:00 He was one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world. He was a philosopher, a mathematician, and had some unique views on diet and religion. You probably know him best for the mathematical theorem that bears his name. However, if you asked anyone 2,600 years ago, they might have known him for something entirely different. Learn more about Pythagoras, his ideas, and the cult that he led on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time. to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

Starting point is 00:00:47 It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR. The Pythagorean theorem is something that everyone learns in school. I'm sure that everyone listening right now has at least heard of it and probably knows what it is. And I'm also guessing that most people probably don't know much about Pythagoras beyond the fact that he was some ancient Greek dude who did math. However, there is a whole lot more to Pythagoras than just triangles. Pythagoras was born sometime around the year 570 BC in Greece. There is little that we

Starting point is 00:01:28 know about the early life of Pythagoras because none of his original writings have survived, nor have any contemporary writings about him. The stories that do exist have him being born in the island of Samos in the Aegean. There are stories about Pythagoras' early life which were written after the fact, but these were mostly tales to illustrate a point. and the tales which were told about him either make him out to be a genius or a crackpot. He also supposedly was educated outside of Greece. He may have received his education in some combination of Egypt, Mesopotamia, or the Levant. He eventually returned to Samos and started a school which became known as the semicircle.

Starting point is 00:02:03 His teaching ability became legendary and supposedly intellectuals from all over Greece came to hear him lecture. The real story of Pythagoras starts when he was about 40 years old and moved to the Greek colony of Croton, which was down near the foot of Italy. It isn't clear why he moved. Some say it was because the ruler of Samos was tyrannical, and others say that he was sick of the burdens placed upon him by the citizens of the island. However, it was in Croton that he established the first Pythagorean community. The Pythagorean would, by modern standards, be considered bizarre.

Starting point is 00:02:35 By ancient standards, however, the Pythagorean were still pretty bizarre. What Pythagoras created was basically a cult, and by cult, I mean both a cult of personality and a religious cult. Pythagoras was worshipped as a demigod by his followers. They literally called him the divine Pythagoras. They would tell others that Pythagoras was a son of a god, usually Apollo or Hermes. There were songs of praise written to him, and his followers believed that he had supernatural powers. He supposedly had the ability to tame eagles and bears by petting them, and he could control any animal by just speaking to it.

Starting point is 00:03:10 He was once supposedly bitten by a snake and killed the snake by biting it back. Aristotle wrote that he was supposed to have a golden thigh and that he displayed it at the Olympic Games. He also once showed his golden thigh to a priest who gave him a magical arrow that allowed him to travel long distances. And FYI, from now on, if I ever cook chicken thighs until they are golden brown, I'm going to call it Pythagorean style. There were also legends that he could appear in two places at once. So this definitely checks all of the boxes for a creepy cult leader. He also had an enormous number of rules that his followers had to adhere to. For starters, all new members had to keep a vow of silence for five years.

Starting point is 00:03:53 The silence was, in theory, supposed to keep the new initiates pure, but it was probably more likely a way for them to keep secrets as they became acclimated to the cult. All of the Pythagorean were vegetarians. Pythagoras required everyone to abstain from meat because he believed, that animals were former human souls. Pythagoreas supposedly was walking down a street when he saw a man beating a dog. He had the man stop eating the dog because he claimed it was one of his former friends, and he could tell this by how the dog barked. As vegetarians went, Pythagoras was a pretty bad one because he still sacrificed living animals.

Starting point is 00:04:27 Chicken, cattle, pigs, and goats were acceptable, but you could never sacrifice a sheep. This pretty obvious hypocrisy was noted while he was still alive. There was a joke that Pythagoras was found eating meat even though he claimed to eat no living thing. When Pythagoras was asked about it, he supposedly said that he killed it first, so it wasn't living. However, in addition to not eating meat, cult members also were not allowed to eat or touch beans. Pythagoras believed that fava beans contained the souls of the dead. You also couldn't eat them because it resulted in flatulence, and when you passed gas, you lost part of your soul. No comment.

Starting point is 00:05:04 I am literally suffering joke overload right now. Followers were also required to put their right shoe on first before their left. The cult had no five-second rule, so if anything fell on the floor, they could not eat it. All sexual relations were discouraged, but if you must, you should only do it in the winter, never the summer. You also couldn't break bread with your hands, nor stir a fire with iron. All of these rules certainly sound odd, and they were, but what exactly were the core beliefs of the pathos? The Cautorian cult. The cult was part philosophy and part religion. They did worship Apollo, in particular the aspect of Apollo who was the god of the oracle at the Temple of Delphi.

Starting point is 00:05:45 As I mentioned, they sacrificed animals to the gods, but also engaged in many other rituals for purification and burial. Pythagoras believed that souls were immortal, and believed in reincarnation. Supposedly, Pythagoras himself could recall four previous lives where he was the son of Hermes, a fisherman, a minor hero in the Trojan War, and a cortisans. So far, none of this has anything to do with triangles. Where do triangles come into play? Well, perhaps the biggest belief in the Pythagorean cult had to do with mathematics. Pythagoras believed that everything in the universe could be expressed through mathematics.

Starting point is 00:06:21 Mathematics to the Pythagorean's was geometry and natural counting numbers. Numbers were represented as dots, not by symbols as we do today. If I wanted to represent three, for example, I would make three dots in a triangle. Numbers were thus visual and a very real thing. Pythagorean's would engage in mathematics as a spiritual exercise not to solve any practical problems. Numbers had different meanings to the Pythagorean's. The number one was related to intellect and being. The number four represented justice.

Starting point is 00:06:50 The number seven was wisdom, and the most important number was ten, as it was written as a pyramid of four, three, two, and one dot. The symbol was known as a Tetractus. As such, Pythagorean's would never gather in groups of more than ten. They had a prayer to the number ten, which read, quote, Bless us divine number, thou who generated gods and men. O holy, holy tetractus, thou that containest the root and source of the eternally flowing creation. For the divine number begins with the profound, pure unity, until it comes to the holy four,

Starting point is 00:07:24 and then it begets the mother of all, the all comprising, all bounding, the first-born, the never-swerving, the never-tiring Holy Ten, the keyholder of all. End quote. And I kind of wonder why this wasn't the subject of a schoolhouse rock episode. Even numbers were considered feminine, and odd numbers were considered masculine. Numbers linked everything in the world together for Pythagorean's. Pythagoras believed that the seven planets, which in antiquity were the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, corresponded to the seven muses.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Mithagoreans, to their credit, were some of the first people in the world who believed that the Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. However, he also believed that the planets moved in perfect circles. They also discovered the relationships between mathematics and music. They experimented with strings and woodwinds of different lengths to produce different notes. They discovered octaves, fifths, and fourths. Everything was tied together. As the music was expressed in numbers and the planets were expressed in numbers, that meant that the planets were creating music. As much of the effort of the Pythagorean's was involved in mathematical inquiry, this is where

Starting point is 00:08:34 the Pythagorean theorem comes into play. For those who need a quick refresher, the Pythagorean theorem simply states that for any right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. While Pythagoras is credited with the discovery, and while he very well may have independently discovered it, he certainly wasn't the first. There's evidence in cuneiform writing from the Babylonians over a thousand years before Pythagoras that they knew about it and used it. Likewise, there is evidence that the theorem was known in Egypt and in India before Pythagoras was born. Bithagoras may have brought the theorem to the Greeks, which is why his name is associated with it. While he got credit for the Pythagorean

Starting point is 00:09:14 theorem, which maybe he shouldn't have, he also might not have gotten credit for identifying the five platonic solids, which were named after Plato. The Pythagorean theorem indirectly caused a crisis in the Pythagorean community. In the Pythagorean philosophy, everything could be expressed as whole numbers and ratios. In modern mathematical terms, these were the rational numbers. However, according to legend, one of his followers by the name of Hepassus proved that the square root of two could not be expressed as a ratio of any two numbers. The number was irrational. This completely poked a hole in the entire Pythagorean worldview. As punishment, Hepassus was drowned in the sea, so his secret could never be revealed. During the life of Pythagoras,

Starting point is 00:09:57 there were multiple Pythagorean communities that sprung up around the south of the Italian peninsula. Women were considered equals in the Pythagorean community and were able and encouraged to study alongside of men. There are several different stories as to the death of Pythagoras. All of them revolve around an attack on the Pythagorean community after a falling out with other locals. Supposedly, the locals burned down the building that he and some of his followers were in. According to one story, he died in the fire. In another story, his followers laid themselves down to his followers laid themselves down, over the flames so he could walk over them to flee to safety. But after he was out, he committed suicide because he felt so guilty over their sacrifice. In yet another story, he fled the building

Starting point is 00:10:38 only to encounter a field of beans. Rather than run through the field, which would be counter to his beliefs, he stood at the edge of the field where he was cut down. The cult of Pythagoras survived his death for several years, but eventually it just withered away. While many of the ideas in the cult of Pythagoras seemed really weird, many of the beliefs of Pythagoras Pythagoras did trickle down to other Greek philosophers. Pythagoras influenced Plato's work on mathematics, and his community might have served as an inspiration for his book, The Republic. Aristotle pretty much rejected all of Pythagoreanism,

Starting point is 00:11:10 but still seemed to have respect for Pythagoras himself. There was a neo-Pathagoreanism revival in the first century, which combined Pythagorean ideals with Stoic and other philosophies. His ideas on the harmony of the universe were adopted by early Christian thinkers, and his belief in heliocentrism obviously became adopted in the 17th century. And many 17th century scientists and philosophers also built off the Pythagorean theories of music and harmony. For somewhat obvious reasons, Pythagoras isn't studied in the same way that other ancient

Starting point is 00:11:42 philosophers are today. For starters, we don't have any of his original writings, and most of his beliefs are sort of silly in hindsight. Nonetheless, Pythagoras played an important part in the very early history of philosophy, mathematics, science, and cults. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett.

Starting point is 00:12:10 Today's review comes from listener NutraGrain Bar over at Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, best podcast. This is the best podcast I have ever listened to. All the episodes are really interesting. I also feel I've learned more from this podcast than I learned in my history class. Thanks, Neutraign Bar. Lest there be any doubt, you are in fact learning more than you did in history class. For starters, you have an amazing teacher.

Starting point is 00:12:35 And secondly, you don't have to sit in a desk staring at the front of a room for 50 minutes. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you two can have it read on the show. Three is a magic number. Yes, it is. It's a magic number. Somewhere in the ancient... mystic trinity you get three as a magic number the past and the present and the future vague and hope and change

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Cult of Pythagoras

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