I carried a story a while back about a British professor who uncovered what he called 'Plato's code.' I just received an email from someone who is broadcasting an interview with said author. Here is the link to the podcast. This is the email I received to tell everyone about it:
Dear Stephan,
I thought you might be interested in my podcast of Friday, an interview with Dr. Jay Kennedy regarding Plato's code. Copied below is my email blast.
For some reason that escapes me, thus far the news has failed to reach this side of the Atlantic. Dr. Jay Kennedy, a Stanford Ph.D. at the University of Manchester, in a truly amazing discovery has found secret musical/mathematical codes in Plato's writings. Plato, it turns out, was a card-carrying Pythagorean who believed that science could explain everything. This implied, of course, that the Gods were not to be propitiated, a view that could well, in ancient Greece, have led to Plato's execution. So Plato promulgated his philosophy in hidden form, known to initiates but not others. It's a mind-boggling achievement.
If you're wondering what this might have to do with contemporary politics, to give just one example I hasten to remind you that the neoconservatives have deep roots in the teachings of a renowned Platonist, Leo Strauss, of the University of Chicago. Strauss believed, to give a quick and dirty summary, that thanks to Plato he and his acolytes were the real elite, meant to rule the world. Strauss was actually right in thinking that Platonic texts contained secret meanings, but now we know Strauss was completely clueless about what those meanings were. I suppose the neocons must seek other sources of philosophical legitimacy... And if you ask me, they had it coming.
The wider implications of a revolutionary reinterpretation of Plato I leave to your imagination.
I'm particularly pleased with this one and I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for listening!
Best,
g.
dating back to conversations with his grandfather, Gaston Frank. "He said we represent one of the last descendants of the Frankist Jewish faith in the world," he muses. "I grew up thinking that our family was something like the Last of the Mohicans."