Apollo: The Light of Consciousness

Plato teaches that in the Hellenic tradition every deity and myth can be interpreted in at least seven ways. One of the highest forms of interpretation is the philosophical way, which ‘decodes’ the manifold mythopoetic elements of the myths, revealing their deeper symbolic levels and wisdom. This includes theological, cosmological, and psychological readings, but culminates in the non-dual interpretation of deities and myths as symbols of the aspects, functions, movements and potentialities of universal consciousness. Myths are seen not as describing a reality outside ourselves, but rather our own consciousness and stages of spiritual realization.

This course focuses on Apollo – one of the most central, luminous, and beloved deities of the Hellenic tradition: the God of Light, Healing, Music, Unity and Spiritual Awakening. Using key ancient texts and language, we will explore the 9 names of Apollo as handed down to us by Socrates, Plato, Plutarch and Proclus, as representing stages and aspects of spiritual realization. Finding our own Ariadne’s thread we shall navigate the rich poetic ornamentation of the mythological descriptions and consider how each name reveals an aspect of wisdom consciousness, illuminating us from within, including the transformation that this realization entails for our lives as human beings.

Dr Athena Potari is Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University. She holds a PhD in Political Philosophy from Oxford University and an MA in Political Theory with distinction from LSE. In 2020 she was the youngest female scholar to receive the prestigious Academy of Athens Award of Philosophy. She is the founder of Atheonoa – a school of philosophy based in Athens, where philosophy is taught as a wisdom tradition combining discursive rigour and textual study with self-enquiry, embodied spiritual, meditation and mindfulness practices. She is author of A Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities published by the Galileo Commission.