Tartaros - Pythagorean Satanism

by Comrade August

While everything in this article pertaining to the structure of what we in Satanic Reds call the Dark Tradition can be found elsewhere on the site, this technical article gives the academic legitimacy of us calling the Pythagoreans "Satanic."

This is done by primarily quoting, not scholars, but the Greeks themselves on what they had to say about their world and the Pythagorean doctrine. All quotes of ancient Greeks in this article can be found in original Greek along with their English translation in  "The Pre-Socratic Philosophers" Second edition, by G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield.

Apart from giving the justification of the term "Pythagorean Satanism" (in the sense that Satanic Reds uses Satanism), this article also tries to paint the picture of a lively and rich mythology and its mythological language. Satanists today seem at a loss when it comes to thinking outside the Christian box. This article gives Satanism a context that is definitely Satanic (it salutes elements represented by Satan in Christian doctrine), but also wholly outside of God vs. Satan dualisms, and a creation in its own right.

Theoria is a Greek word meaning contemplation and observation. It is the origin of our word "theory," but unlike "theory," it also hints of the underlying process of forming a theory. Theoria was the contemplative and mystical part of the tradition held by the mathematikoi. The basis of this was the Orphic mythology, especially the Orphic cosmogenesis. What we know about this is largely based on Hesoid’s Theogony and the surviving fragments of Pherecydes work in ten volumes with the title Pentemychos. The best summary however, is given by Aristophanes in his comedy "The Birds." There he outlines the Orphic cosmogenesis like this:

"First of all there was Chaos and Night and black Erebos ["Darkness"] and wide Tartaros, and neither Ge nor Aer nor Ouranos existed.  In the boundless bosoms of Erebos black-winged Night begets, first, a wind-egg, from which in the fulfilment of the seasons ardent Eros burgeoned forth, his back gleaming with golden wings, like as he was to the whirling winds. Eros, mingling with winged, gloomy Chaos in broad Tartaros, hatched out our race and first brought it into the light."

Two other quotes building upon the same ideas are:

"And the tale is not mine but from my mother, how sky an earth were one form; and when they had been separated apart from each other they bring forth all things, and gave them up into the light: trees, birds, beasts, the creatures nourished by the salt sea, and the race of mortals." – Euripides

"For by the original composition of the universe sky and earth had one form, their natures being mingled; after this their bodies parted from each other, and the world took on the whole arrangement that we see in it…" – Diodorus

These quotes summarize the basic structure of the cosmogenesis, the basis of Theoria. From Chaos, Night, Darkness (Erebos), and Tartaros (You get the impression that they are many words ultimately serving as titles of One thing.), there emanates forth an "egg" in the unbounded bosom. The egg is hatched and Eros burgeons forth and with Eros the whole world we know. From the Darkness the Light is born, and then the Light is formed into our "arranged" cosmos. The "highest" in this theology would be the unbounded, primeval Darkness.

Zeus is often presented as something of a Greek proto-Jehovah (bearded guy that everyone obeys). That picture is not completely right. As a correcting pointer I include a quote by Homer:

"…and he [Zeus] would have cast me from the ether into the sea, out of sight, had not Night, subduer of gods and men, saved me; to her did I come in flight, and Zeus ceased, angry though he was; for he was in awe of doing what would be displeasing to swift Night." -Homer.

Note here that Night is referred to as feminine. The Greek mythology was early on more of a matriarchy than a patriarchy. Probably due to the influence of the matriarchal-type Pelasgians; an Altaic people that were Greece original inhabitants. The classic Greek culture arose when these mixed genetically and culturally with the Hellenic people (the Achaeans) that moved into the area.

In a more elaborate version of cosmogenesis it is described how the Darkness first begets (or becomes, depending on how you read) a number of principles or forms before the world-egg is laid in the bosom of the Darkness, and after that the ordered world, kosmos, appears. The piecing together of what can be unravelled about Pherecydes pentemychos gives us the version that the Darkness (in the form of Chronos – precosmic time as opposed to the later Kronos) has an offspring that is put into the pentemychos ("five recesses") so that the ordered cosmos can appear. Pherecydes also describes how, after the Light - the ordering principle, appears, a cosmic battle takes place. On one side is Kronos (ordered time) and on the other is the offspring of Darkness/Night, led by Ophioneus. Ophioneus is depicted as a multi-headed snake ("ophis") or dragon. Kronos is victorious and the ordered cosmos can appear. The precosmic offspring were five in number. Apart from Ophioneus is Cthonie, Eurynome, Echidna and Callirhoe mentioned in the surviving fragments. The offspring are eternal and cannot be destroyed, instead they are thrown from the ordered world in an "appointment of assignments."  These are the "five defenders/punishers and principles" on the pentacle.  This is elaborated upon in "Tantra, Vajrayana and Pythagoreanism" sold by P. Marsh (see AD on website).  These are the same as the five dharmas and their attendant Dhyanni Buddhas that come in many forms, from helpful to super wrathful. 

In later versions Kronos is replaced by Zeus, but the story remains the same. Kronos/Zeus orders the offspring out from the cosmos to Tartaros. There they are kept behind locked Gates, fashioned in iron (associated with Zeus and his element of sky/space) and bronze (by Poseidon – the water force). We are told that the Darkness has an offspring that is put into the pentemychos, and we are told that the Darkness has an offspring that is cast into Tartaros. Binding evidence is lacking, but it does indeed seem very, very plausible that the prison-house in Tartaros and the pentemychos are one and the same. Something that further strengthens this is the Pythagorean use of the pentacle, by them called pentalpha, pentagonas, pentagrammon ("grammar" because it implies an order and arrangement?), and, we might now perhaps dare to add; pentemychos. There really is no other likely explanation for the their use of the pentacle.   The pentacle is that which represents the darkness-infused and can also be seen as protection.  The angles (gates) are not only the "houses" of the five, but they are the gateways by which the five can come here. 

In most of later Western Occultism, the elements have been proposed as being signified by it, but that theory has almost nothing to back it up and ignores the fact that the pre-Socratics counted four elements and not five. The Pythagoreans called their pentacle "Health" (Hygieia), but more on how that relates to everything above later. 

To understand more about what their tradition said about how the world worked in the now, it is important to understand the key concept of "krater."

True, after the world had been ordered, Tartaros and its brood was locked away behind, or beneath, the surveillance of Zeus and Poseidon, but that doesn’t mean it was out of the game. The Darkness continued to have an influence (as is evident in what Homer says above of how Night is the "subduer" of both gods and men) and could still be reached.  Keep in mind that by the time Zeus is being used, the originally more pure form of this was changed a bit. 

The way to Tartaros was a descent through krater into the Underworld. Krater was the connection and gateway between the physical and that which was outside of space and time: Tartaros/Night/Erebos/Chaos. While it, in mythological and allegorical myths and languages, was pictured as a cave or crater, it was in reality understood to be something un-centralized.

Plutarch describes Orpheus insight about its true nature like this: "It has no boundary anywhere on earth and neither does it have a single set base, but it wanders everywhere through mankind in dreams and visions." There are lots of stories about how Greek heroes, philosophers and mystics have descended to Tartaros/Hades (The distinction between the two was very optional back then) in quest for Wisdom. The Underworld as the source of wisdom was the rule. For example were all Apollo temples built at the mouth of a cave (the dark Dionysian-type intuition necessary for the apollonian logic), the oracle at Delphi was situated sitting at the mouth of a deep chasm, and the early Medusa (in her original connection with Metis, before patriarchy degraded her) was connected to caves.

About the Pythagorean philosopher Empedocles it was told how he threw himself down into the crater of Etna, and how Hecate, she who is the queen and guard of the entrance to Tartaros, gave him a sandal of bronze to show that she allowed him entrance. A bronze sandal as a sign of Hecate’s approval of the searching sorcerer or shaman was common in Orphic myths and hymns. That it was made of bronze can be explained by the association to the bronze Gates of Tartaros. The Pythagorean philosopher Parmenides, also, explains a similar quest in a surviving poem: he travels through the bronze Gates from Day to Night, to the Goddess that unravels to him the secrets of life.

Except that krater was the gateway from the "here" to "there," it was also the way through which the Tartaros-associated powers acted in our "here." It was a way travelled both in both directions. How this happened was described as a process of breathing. The world was something  living, and that which vitalized it was the breathing through krater. The presence of the Darkness through krater was what gave spirit (psyche) to the world, something that made the philosopher Thales rejoice that "everything is full of daimons." The word daimon is where we get our word "demon" from. The daimons were considered to be the intermediary between the divine (Tartaros) and us mortals, as well as our genius – the root behind artistic and scientific creativity. The idea might seem crude, but should not be understood as different from what we mean when we say that a song "has soul."

Krater was originally (as well as later) also a mixing-bowl where water and wine were mixed. Krater survived in the occult tradition as the grail, cup or chalice. This cup is the intermediary between the divine and the "here." For much more about the cup, specifically in a Crowleyan context, see the later part of "On Contradiction from a Crowleyan Outlook" on this website. http://www.geocities.com/satanicreds/cr-oncon.html

While theoria contained the mystical understanding of the universe, kosmos was the rational or scientific study and perception of the world. Theoria and kosmos were closely linked to each other, like two sides of a single coin. Theoria was the mystery tradition itself, and kosmos the scientific study sprung from it.

To put things in a Pythagorean context; theoria was pre-eminently the study of the Darkness and kosmos was the study of the Light and the structured world. It was this, kosmos, that really set the Pythagoreans apart from the earlier Orphics. One might also say that their doing this, was the beginning of scientific thinking in the world. 

The common ground for how they projected the Orphic doctrines onto the world, as a rational context for physical understanding and study, can be seen in their concept of apeiron. The early Greeks noted that all things in this world are bounded, or defined. ("Pera" in Greek, meaning "boarder.") The kosmos can be described as the set of all defined, or bounded things. Along the same trails of thought the concept of that which is not bounded was formed, hence a-peiron. The "discovery" of the apeiron is attributed to Anaximander; pupil and friend of Thales, and sometimes understood as the teacher of Pythagoras. The surviving lines of his discovery reads:

archaen …eirikae ton onton to apeiron
The beginning and the origin of all being things (of the all-there-is) is the apeiron.

ex on de he genesis esti tois ousi
and therefrom is the emergence (waxing) of all the being things

kai taen phthoran eis tauta ginesthai kata to chreon
thereinto is also their waning (destruction, annihilation) according to their fate (chreon).

didonai gar auta dikaen kai tisin allaelois taes adikias kata taen tou chronou taxin
and they pay each other their justified debt and penance for their injustice (adikia) according to the law of the time (Chronos).

What Anaximander did was to put forth a rationalized version and understanding of the mythological cosmology. That the doctrine presented here as theoria, about how an egg is conceived in the Darkness and then is hatched with the result of the arranged cosmos, offers a good background for a very reasonable (and correct!) understanding of how the cosmos came to be is evident. When Anaximander instead of the mythical words Dark and Light uses apeiron and peiron, the whole thing seems even more "on target." Aristotle sheds more light on the ideas contained in this when he comments how:

 "…of the infinite there is no beginning… but this seems to be the beginning of the other things, and to enfold all things and steer all […] And this is the divine; for it is immortal and indestructible, as Anaximander says and most of the physical speculators." –Aristotle.

Apeiron is what defines the peiron. The influence of the apeiron initiates a ceaseless dialectical motion of opposites according to Anaximander, a thought that was carried on by Heraclitus and in modern days formulated as dialectical materialism. Pythagoras was inspired by this idea but formulated it in another way; the teaching about how everything in the world is determined by, and preserved in, precise mathematical attunements. This was what really set Pythagoras apart. Aristotle explains how the Pythagoreans developed Anaximander’s ideas by writing that:

"… for they [the Pythagoreans] plainly say that when the one had been constructed, whether out of planes or of surface or of seed or of elements which they cannot express, immediately the nearest part of the unlimited began to be drawn in and limited by the limit." –Aristotle.

"The Pythagoreans, too, held that void exists, and that it enters the heaven from the unlimited breath – it, so to speak, breathes in void. The void distinguishes the natures of things, since it is the thing that separates and distinguishes the successive terms in a series. This happens in the first case of numbers; for the void distinguishes their nature." –Aristotle.

And Strobaues in his turn about what Aristotle wrote about the Pythagoreans in his now lost book about them:

"In the first book of his work On the Philosophy of Pythagoras he writes that the universe is one, and that from the unlimited there are drawn into it time, breath and the void, which always distinguishes the places of each thing." -Strobaeus.  

The apeiron is "inhaled," just in the same way as the Darkness through krater. Apeiron is the Darkness/Night/Tartaros, apeiron is a Dark force that permeates, motivates and steers all of nature. It is because of this that time and change exists - today we might say that the apeiron is the guarantor behind the law of increasing entropy. The idea is that without this Dark apeiron-force there would only be a continuum (syneches), a static undifferentiated whole.

The modern parallel is the big-bang theory. First was a perfectly symmetrical singularity. With that it is not meant "a small cosmic pie of incredible density floating somewhere in the middle of space." By the perfect symmetry of the big-bang it is meant an undifferentiated whole; where neither space, time nor matter can be singled out. The Pythagorean thought is that if the apeiron had not been inhaled by the peiron-type firstborn one (the egg in mythology) immediately after it had been conceived (see Strobaues above), the world would have remained like that; an undifferentiated continuum without separation in "time and space." Might it be that science with its recent discoveries about the mysterious "dark energy" that is blowing space-time up like a bubble is catching up with the ancient Pythagorean?

This inhalation of the apeiron is what makes the world mathematical, not just possible to describe using math, but truly mathematical. The apeiron causes separation, which also apparently means that it "separates and distinguishes the successive terms in a series." Instead of a whole we have separate parts separated by "void" between them. Between any two whole numbers are infinitely many numbers. The Pythagorean philosopher Zeno is famous for his paradoxes that he built upon this insight. In one of them a runner is to run a distance. First he covers half the distance, then half of what is left, then half of what is left after that, etc. That way, he always have a "half" left! Everywhere in the finite is the infinite, and that is a mathematical fact. The Pythagorean dictum ("all is number") is that this is true also in the case of nature, because the two are upheld by the very same principle – a whole that is separated by the infusion of void. Everywhere in nature the three numbers Pi, e, and Phi keep occurring. They are irrational, they have an infinite number of decimals. To the growth shape you can see the golden mean (Phi) and to see Pi in a flower is to see the apeiron in the peiron. The growth rate is the number e.  The intuitive feeling for this was one of the things that separated the mathematikoi from the akousmatikoi. For more about these three numbers and how they relate to krater (also known as Mychos) and the rest of "physics," see article about "The Three Gates and the Tangram" on this website. You can find that article at this url.  http://www.geocities.com/satanicreds/3gates-tan.html

When apeiron was in peiron and steered the cosmic "arrangement," it was known as logos and likened to a fire. The world’s breathing of the apeiron is by Heraclitus described as:

"This world-order did none of the gods or men make, but it was and is and shall be: an everliving fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."-Heraclitus.

Heraclitus also says that "Thunderbolt steers all things." All of this is identical to the eastern esoteric dark doctrine. The fire spoken of is directly linked to the fiery craters and pits of mythology. As I have shown earlier, the spirit of a human (and all else) was her breathing through krater. Because of this it was also considered as a fire (when the breath is here it is the "fire") and spoken of as her logos.

It is known that this fire that continually passes through us like breath (going in and out in measures) was closely tied to the idea of katharsis.  Katharsis is a word commonly translated as "purification." This may not be incorrect, but translating it as "release," or to just let it stand as it is would be more at it. Both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans practiced so called orgias; the classical basic or dionysian feasts that. The purpose of these were katharsis. With these in mind, it is easy to see way "purification," as that word has come to have very different inferences in modern English, does not give the right association. The article "Western Roots One" elaborates on this in detail.  See our AD on this website. 

Diogenes Laertius writes about the earlier mentioned mythical descent into Tartaros by Empedocles that:

"There came a time, Empedocles, when you purified [katharsis] your body with living flame, and drank immortal fire from the mixing-bowls of the craters."-Diogenes Laertius.

To get katharsis was evidently closely linked to the Underworldy wisdom-journeys. He who has logos has logic, and he owns or has an innate "ordering principle." The adjective "living" keeps reoccurring. The flame of katharsis is the fire of the living. Opposed to these are the thanatos (i.e. those who are alive yet miserably dead inside). To have this fire is to have "Health."  Now the reasoning for the Pythagoreans calling their pentacle Hygieia becomes clear. The pentagram was the "pentemychos" and hence symbolized five sides of the Darkness in which "the living flame" has its root, the meaning and use of the symbol is now both understandable as well as truly sublime.

In the quote about theoria and cosmogenesis Eros probably had an unexpected role for many; it is the Light that is born from the Darkness and arranges it into what it is today. If the same model is taken down to the context of katharsis and Hygieia, Eros takes the function and role we are used to; "the living flame." The two models really speak of the same thing, just as apeiron and Night are the same, it all just depends on perspective and reference.  

I have hitherto given only easily verifiable facts. Everything said to this point is also identical to eastern esoteric tradition about the One Darkness and the Flame that burns in it. What now follows is of a more speculative nature, and builds upon the premise that also the rest of the Pythagorean tradition (primarily the use of the pentagram) has its parallels in the same eastern doctrine.

Hygieia, then, would be in a proper relation with this guiding five-fold (pentemychos) Darkness, therefore, it would be in proper relation with the idea of God! But, is there any clue as to what these five "truths," or "proper relations" were? Yes there are. In Tantra, they are clearly spelled out and elaborated upon.  They are also spelled out and explained in "Tantra, Vajrayana and Pythagoreanism" See AD.  In that  monograph, exactly what these are is made perfectly clear.  The clues, published and available to be read, however, are few, but lie within what is told about the five-fold precosmic offspring. 

I’ll begin with Ophioneus, as it is the one that seems to have been of greatest importance, and we have the most surviving fragments about it. Ophioneus is both the serpent of the primeval watery abyss and the hatcher of the World-Egg. The Waters are the Waters of life; the Foundation. Ophioneus is by Pherecydes said to be guarding the Roots to the Tree of Life. As seen earlier, the Pythagoreans held a tradition about the Light that flows through you, and that has its Root in the Darkness from where it comes. More specifically, it seems this "Root in the Darkness" was linked to Ophioneus. In a surviving Orphic hymn called  Hymn to Protogones, the Light is referred to as "the egg-born with golden wings" and as "coming full of metis (wisdom)." If the Light is the egg-born and Ophioneus the hatcher of the world-egg, then Ophioneus definitely connects to the "place" in the Darkness where the Light has its Root. To have this Root is to have the "living flame" spoken of earlier. The Root connected to Ophioneus is something shared by the "living." A fitting word to describe this principle would be Zoos (which means "living being" or "life"); letting go to your nature and the flow of your being, i.e. being Rooted. That the ancient Pythagoreans used that precise word to describe a principle of the pentemychos cannot be shown using academic reference, but that Zoos is a word that accurately pin-points this part of the doctrine is perfectly clear if you understand what has been said so far.

Based on archaeological findings, the Pythagorean pentagram seems to have been two points up (see picture at the end of article). This also fits far better with what has been unravelled about their doctrine than would the one point up version. The part of the pentemychos that was the Root described above, and was connected  to Ophioneus, would be the bottom point. Also (this argument has little academic value, but lots of occult value!), try giving the two kinds of pentagram to a painter (if you do not have the eyes of an artist yourself) and ask him or her what expressions the lines of the two glyphs convey. The one point up version looks urging upwards, unsatisfied and unbalanced - while the two point up figure looks balanced, resting, in harmony and stable. This is what matters in the occult tradition, but that seems to fly over people's heads (people also tend to see the yin/yang-symbol as static and dead).

From Pherecydes we also get some clues about the relation between Ophioneus, Cthonie and Eurynome. From Cthonie (means "She Underlying the Earth") stretches, or it is Cthonie herself that stretches upward as a self-supporting Oak (Hypopteros Drys) round which the Robe of Earth is wrapped, with her Roots in the Underworld, her crown in Heaven. The revitalizing Tree of Life is guarded by the serpent Ophioneus who dwells in the Water around its Roots. If we want to know how the Five relate to each other and which point or angle on the star that meant what, we have to decode this. It’s like a sequence to it; 1. Cthonie, 2. Her Roots or Ophioneus, 3. The Ambrosial Oak; the Life-Tree, Hypopteros Drys. I have already ascribed Ophioneus to the bottom point, if we are to follow the above given relations it seems plausible to ascribe either the top left or the top right point to Cthonie, depending on what way the Alphas move. I say the Alphas move sinistrally, and hence I place Cthonie at the top left point. What principle of Health does she represent? She is the beginning of Necessity, she is the giver of Nature (Physis). Physis was a word related to growth, birth and development that came to mean "Nature." Physis referred to the essential Nature of a thing, as opposed to its required characteristics. As such, physis took on connotations of inviolability, and by extension came to refer to how things really are. What about Hypopteros Drys then? Should it be ascribed to the top right point? Both yes and no I argue. It is not one of the five, it is symbolic of the Health-principle at the top right angle. Hypopteros Drys means "under the wing of the oak." The Being to be placed on the top right point is Eurynome.

On Eurynome from Robert Graves’ "The Greek Myths": In the beginning, Eurynome, the Goddess of All Things, rose naked from Chaos, but found nothing substantial for her feet to rest upon, and therefore divided the sun from the sky, dancing upon its waves. She danced towards the south and set the wind in motion behind her. Wheeling about, she caught hold of this north wind, Boreas, and rubbed it between her hands, until the great coiling serpent Ophion appeared. As Eurynome dances wilder and wilder to warm herself, Ophion grows lustful and coils about her divine limbs and is moved to couple with her. Eurynome then assumed the form of a dove and laid the Universal Egg, Ophion coiled around it seven times until it hatched and split in two. Out tumbled all things that exist, her children: sun, moon, planets, stars, the earth with its mountains and rivers, its trees, herbs and living creatures.

Ophion coils about her limbs, aspires upwards to mate with her. But, was it not the Oak, Hypopteros Drys, that he coiled about? Eurynome seems connected to the Life-Tree. Eurynome literally means "wide rule." Eurynome is the queen of the Tree. Her principle of Health (the Hypopteros Drys) is to be "under the wing of the oak." If you could see matter moving through Time, you would see a chain or sequence (like big fish eats little fish,

human eats big fish, etc). The Hypopteros Drys is to connect to that. Cthonie, Ophioneus and Eurynome, and Physis, Zoos and Hypopteros Drys; the principles associated with their Alphas. What are the missing two guiding rulers and principles of Health? Left lower point on the pentacle is Echidna and its principle is Psyche, and the right lower point on the pentacle  is Callirhoe and the principle Dikaion. I don’t have much Greek mythology to back up that connection, but I’ll try to make my case for it anyway. My key is that I look to the east.

The eastern esoteric doctrine (Vajrayana-style) holds "five principles of Health." These are known as the five truths (Dharmas) about being. They are in short (From "Tantra, Vajrayana and Pythagoreanism" (see AD) though this is also totally standard information.

Amithaba: Discriminating wisdom of knowing each separate thing as it really is – and knowing that they are also this One Thing (or were, but if you intuit it, it is as if they are, yet are not). Associated with fire, it is incomprehensible light, boundless light. Vital heat (like when the heart is open, sincere, warmth, innocence, openness, especially with self ). Obscuring/obsessing passions that destroy sincerity/innocence and close the heart are: mental-lust, greed-bondage to things out of feeling of emptiness (no sincerity with one’s self is implied). Colour: red.

Vairochana: The sum of these wisdoms. Supra mundane wisdom, That which in shapes makes visible, a manifester of phenomena in cosmos. Associated with space (or space/time as space/time is one thing). Obscuring/obsessing passions: stupidity and stagnation. Its colour is blue.

Amogha Siddi: All-performing wisdom. Breath of life, yogic states of being. Almighty conqueror of samsara. Related to air (breath/breathing). Obscuring obsession is jealousy. Colour: green.

Ratna-sambhava: Wisdom of Equality as what each thing is, organic, inorganic, big, small, etc. Beautifier of all things unique. Associated with earth. Obscuring obsession: egoism, pride (hubris), selfish insincerity (with others is implied). Colour: yellow.

Akshobya: Mirror-like wisdom. Root, life-stream origin (tree). Unagitated and immovable. Associated with water. Obscuring obsession is anger (an angry person by nature is implied, not anger at a wrong done) and self-hate. Colour: white.

Amithaba is Physis, Vairochana is Hypopteros Drys and Akshobya is Zoos. The resemblances between the Asat/Sat/Tanmatri doctrine, the five dharma-truths and what I’ve stated so far about the Pythagoreans is just too great to ignore. Because of the great resemblances in doctrine, I justify Psyche and Dikaion as two principles without having any Greek quote naming them in direct connection to the pentacle. They were indeed two concepts of great importance to the Pythagoreans, so I don’t think its a very big stretch really. Psyche ("soul," the breath spoken of earlier) would be like Amogha Siddi, and Dikaion (inner Justice) would be like Ratna-sambhava. Why Callirhoe should be linked with Dikaion and Echidna with Psyche is perhaps a bit more vague. One clue is the names; Callirhoe means "head of beauty," something that fits quite well with "beautifier of all things unique."  Interesting to note here is that if the colors attributed to the five darmic truths are put on the pentacle according to the Pythagorean correspondences proposed here,  the image rendered is the traditional Eastern Star of Freemasonry. And it signifies five blazing angles attributed to five holy heroines connected to five "virtues"!

What happened to Pythagoreanism after ca 400 BC is a matter of history and not of doctrine. Here it is enough to say that most of it was carried on by Plato and, later on, by the daimon invoking theurgists and Neo-Platonists. What historically connects Pythagoreanism to "Satanism" in the Christian sense of the idea of "satanism," aside from the pentacle, is what became of Tartaros. In the original Greek Bible, it is used by Peter (2 Peter 2:4) to mean the place in hell where the fallen angels are confined. Albeit this might not be so far from the original doctrine (this is just extremely dumbed down and anthropomorphic), the inner meaning of it all was now totally lost. Later Christian writers even used the Pythagorean Tartaros to prove the reality of the Christian doctrine – Hey, if its not real, how could the Pythagoreans and Plato have described the Christian hell and the fallen angels hundreds of years before Jesus, they argued. Christian writers guilty of this are not some mere minors, no we’re talking about guys like Albertus Magnus and Tomas Aquinas. Evidently these people glossed over the real facts about the Pythagorean Tartaros (see quotes in the beginning).

Tartaros is not the only concept confused into something it wasn’t. The Flame in Darkness, the fire that entered from Tartaros through krater, got utterly garbled up, too. Basically it was transformed into three things: Christ was made into the logos,  the fires of krater got degenerated into the fires of hell and purgatory. 

 Here are examples of total ignorance, a further degeneration.  Aristotle developed a geocentric world-order. This was later further developed by the astronomer Ptolemaios. The works of Ptolemaios had almost the same status as the Bible for the medieval church scholastics. Aristotle explained gravity by saying that material things move naturally towards the centre of the universe (the earth). This might be wrong, but it is not that stupid really. However, when combined with another facet of the Aristotelian scheme the result was repulsive to the extreme. Outside the sphere of the Moon all things are made of ether, a material not subject to decay and change. Outside of the sphere of the fixed stars is even greater purity; God! Aristotle said that things will towards their natural place. For the soul this place was God. Unfortunately it was imprisoned in the body, and its natural will was towards the centre of the universe. The real centre of the universe was hell! (inside the earth).  This idiocy can be seen to have dragged humanity backward some 2000 years. 

The medieval world-order was hell-iocentric (not to be confused with heliocentric). When the scholastics said that the body threatens to drag the soul into sin it had a literal meaning. In light of this, the ado made during the Seventeenth Century about whether the sun or the earth was to be counted as the centre makes much more sense. It was a question of religious, moral and existential value. It is interesting to note that nearly all of the leading figures in this Galileo-ian or heliocentric revolution were Platonists and praised Pythagoras. Of even greater interest is that while Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo brought Plato and Pythagoras back, the real version of Tartaros was at the same time publicly aired. I’m talking about John Milton.

John Milton visited Galileo during Galileo’s years of imprisonment for his ideas (later he was executed). There are references to Galileo and his telescope in Milton’s Paradise Lost, and their conversations were used as the basis for an essay against censorship written by Milton. In 1667 Milton’s epical "Paradise Lost" was published in ten volumes. In it is contained lots of things of interest. Milton did what no one had done before him in more than a thousand years; he rather publicly gave Tartaros all its original attributes. He describes Tartaros as:

"…The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark
Illimitable Ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal Anarchie, …"

Tartaros, in the scholastic sense, is blown far away. Instead we have Pythagorean doctrine. With six lines he turns the medieval concept of hell on its head and replaces it with the ancient Darkness outside of space and time. He refers to it as "the Womb of Nature." He also describes the Gates to Tartaros and says they’re made of bronze and iron. The guardian to these Gates he refers to as the "Snakie Sorceress," and as the "Keyholder." Hecate was as said earlier known as the Gatekeeper and Keyholder (Kleidoukhos). These Gates are, according to Milton, necessary for the continuance of the cosmos. Except this, he makes yet another connection. He makes Etna the entrance into Tartaros. This is a clear reference to Empedocle’s mythical journey and Plato’s reference in his Phadeo. He presents all this as being of Satan.

Milton's story is a fiction and not theology, but that he pieced all this together without a reason (mere chance?) seems more than a little strange. It would be much more reasonable to read him as if he is implying the "Satanic" revolt of the Platonists and the Pythagoreans against the church that took place during Milton’s lifetime if you read between the lines and know the history.

The connection between Pythagorean doctrine and the Dark Doctrine presented by Satanic Reds is definitely there, and so is the historical connection between Pythagorean concepts and things Satanic, even as the Christians defined them. The Greeks are often given credit as the founders of Western Civilization. The Pythagoreans were not; they are, however, absolutely the founders of science and Western Dark Tradition.

Pythagorean pentacle in bronze, ca 400 BC.

The word PITAN is written around it. Pitan was the Serpent Deity. Serpent imagery was very prevalent in the old Hellenic world, as is evident from the many places and sites with serpentine names; we meet with places called Opis, Ophis, Ophitæa, Ophionia, Ophioessa, Ophiodes, and Ophiusa. Pytha means snake or serpent. If you got information and learning from the Ophite priests, it was said that you had been instructed by Serpents.

It is rather intriguing to note that in the orgies of Bacchus the persons in the ceremony used to scream "Eva, Eva." They also used to hold snakes in their hands and women put snakes in their hair (the origin of the picture of Medusa?). Eva was the same as Eph, Epha, Opha, which the Greeks rendered Ophis, and by it denoted a serpent. Clemens of Alexandria acknowledges that the term Eva, properly aspirated, had such a signification. The woman Eve and the tempting and mocking Serpent might have been one and the same in essence. One thing is for sure, both women and the Serpent were victims of the later Christian oppression. Ab was an Ophite deity-title that meant father, but also was connected to the Serpent, and it was indifferently styled Ab, Aub, and Ob. (It would be the Ob, the Serpent eating its own tail and devouring the cosmos) Some regard Abadon, or, as it is mentioned in the Book of Revelation, Abaddon, to have been the name of the same Ophite god, "with whose worship the world had been so long infected." He is termed Abaddon, the angel of the bottomless pit - the prince of darkness. In another place he is described as the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan.

I say: Lets put an end to the lies, lets hear it for Satan!

Daimoniodeis archaiai legeones egkauchaomenai en chaous! 

Visit: Satanic Reds