Orphism is the ancient religious system established by Orpheus from Thrace, an impressive personality with extraordinary talents. The existence of Orpheus is lost in the depths of the centuries, but his religious system fertilized the religious thought of the Western world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Orphic practice aims to free the human soul from the material \u201cwalls\u201d of the body and unite it with the divine element. To achieve this, the soul is incarnated many times, until it is completely purified and completes its cycle in the material world. Orpheus established the Orphic Mysteries or Mysteries of Dionysus, special mystical ceremonies in which the believer comes into contact with the divine part of his soul, through ecstasy. Then, a lifelong struggle began with the goal of purifying the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The liberation from matter, in order to develop the divine element, required daily effort and strict adherence to specific principles and habits that are of exceptional interest. Many of these have survived in Christian ethics and are familiar to us, although few follow them anymore. Others seem outdated and strange. In any case, they can inspire those who admire the virtuous life or seek new paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first and main duty of the Orphic is selfless devotion to the gods. Prayer is the means of communication with the divinity, and therefore with the divine element that is trapped in the soul oppressed by matter. The Orphic does not ask for favors from the god; he knows that he must succeed on his own, no matter how difficult it may be. The liberation of the soul from matter also requires the control of the desires of the body. This is not an easy task, but it is achieved with daily practice. The Orphics, like the Pythagoreans, reverently observed specific rules every day, in every activity they did. A lifestyle that benefited the soul had to become a habit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then comes piety towards parents. No one can purify their soul if they do not respect those who brought them into life. Respect is also owed by the Orphic to his or her spouse. Marriage is primarily a spiritual union, and carnal union is of little importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In their relations with their friends and other people, Orphics must be just. When we act unjustly, we do so in order to satisfy base desires. We succumb to the demands of our material self and cause disturbance to our soul and the god hidden within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most interesting spiritual process for Orphics and Pythagoreans is the search for knowledge. Contrary to the established view, in Orphism knowledge is not a new conquest, but a memory! The soul is not a blank slate, but already knows the truth about the world and life before it enters the material body. But when he is incarnated, he ceases to remember and it seems as if he is learning everything from scratch. In reality, however, learning is simply the recollection of known things. Plato explains in detail in the dialogues \u201cMeno\u201d and \u201cPhaedo\u201d how through questions and associations the soul remembers, with the result that man can acquire knowledge even about matters for which he has no empirical data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The influence that Orpheus\u2019 teaching had on subsequent religious and philosophical movements is impressive and lasting. In addition to Pythagoras, who adopted both the doctrine of reincarnation and the rules of life and behavior of the Orphics, and Plato, who expanded on the theory of the immortality of the soul, the Stoics and Neoplatonists were greatly influenced during Hellenistic times. What is even more impressive, however, is how much Christianity was influenced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christianity borrowed from the Orphics the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, although it did not share reincarnation. Also, the Redeemer was, like Dionysus, the offspring of a god and a mortal woman and before he could undertake his mission he had to die and be resurrected. If you study the matter more deeply, you will find many more similarities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what one understands without studying too much is that selfless love for God is a rare phenomenon in our world today. Nor do we achieve respect and justice so easily. So, if Orpheus was right, our souls have many more lives to endure before they are redeemed. Except, perhaps, for those who can endure living in the Orphic way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Orphism is the ancient religious system established by Orpheus from Thrace, an impressive personality with extraordinary talents. The existence of Orpheus is lost in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[988,7],"tags":[6725,6727,6728,6726,5690],"class_list":["post-23435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-science","category-research","tag-orpheus","tag-orphic-mysteries","tag-redeemer","tag-religious","tag-soul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25276,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23435\/revisions\/25276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}