Recurring Collaborations
— Plato, Theaetetus, 369 BC, 150
Plato was an incarnation of Pratabulu, an Osirian Adept descended from the youngest son of Adam el Daoud. Similarly, Aristotle was an incarnation of Aristonaiu, a descendant of Arbal el Caen, the eldest son of the Father King, Adam el Daoud. also known as 'the Beloved'. The latter two entities were once co-incarnate as Jesus Christ. Note that Pratabulu and Aristonaiu are illustrated generically since actual portraits of Atlanteans are not to be found. Their parallel incarnations are tabulated below and do not reflect mainstream Anthroposophy views.
Plato (428 – 347 BCE) was one of the most original and influential thinkers in Western philosophy. He founded the Academy at Athens and taught a doctrine of mentalism; ie that all things are expressions of primordial ideas within the universal mind. Plato preserved the dialogues of Socrates and recorded much of the metaphysical information channelled through his teacher, although this type of revelatory knowledge was already receding under the emerging trend of rationalism. In turn Plato's own pupil, Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE), moved away from supersensible inspiration toward rational speculation. He considered knowledge to be grounded in sensory experience and proceeded to produce logical explanations for all natural phenomena. While Aristotle's scientific theories covered physics and biology (his wife Pythias was a biologist and embryologist), his metaphysical speculations were essentially materialistic. Aristotle eventually discounted Plato's notion of a soul distinct from the body. For him God was the Prime Mover, a cosmic force rather than a spiritual essence. Though many of his conclusions are now redundant, his empirical method and analytical approach still form a fundamental part of our modern scientific thinking.
Aristotle tutored the young Alexander the Great for several years. Their relationship was marked by dialogue and debate — notably on the ethics of good governance and strong leadership — and lasted until their deaths. ​They returned in their next incarnations, together, as Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 – 196 BCE) and Ptolemy III Euergetes (284 – 222 BCE). Once more a Greek philosopher, Eratosthenes headed the great library of Alexandria (so named after Alexander) while Ptolemy, again a Macedonian king, became the third pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.
Like Aristotle, Eratosthenes' knowledge was vast and profound. He excelled as a scientist, mathematician, poet and inventor, but is most famous for his remarkable calculation of the earth's circumference and hence called the father of geography. Eratosthenes eventually went blind and starved himself to death. This blindness was the karmic consequence of his agnostic neglect of the visionary faculty of the mind, but in a later incarnation as the German philosopher Rudolf Steiner he would acquire extraordinary powers of clairvoyance.​​
​Likewise Plato and Aristotle were to resume their own teacher-pupil relationship as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.
St Albertus Magnus (c.1200 – 1280) was a Hermetic scholar noted for introducing Greek philosophy and Arabic science into the medieval world. As a Dominican theologian he now taught St Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274). The latter attempted to reconcile the philosophy of Aristotle with the theology of St Augustine, and thereby to reconcile all knowledge with faith. He wrote the magnum opus, Summa Theologica, a classic history of philosophy and among the most influential works on the history of ideas in Western culture. Aristotle's thought had already been rediscovered by the Arabs in the golden age of their culturally advanced empire, and was to become authoritative in Europe throughout the Middle Ages — not without negative consequences. Adopted and adapted as a basis for Christian scholasticism by Aquinas, Aristotle's teachings were deemed by the Church to be the last word on natural philosophy, which precluded further scientific research until the dawn of the Enlightenment. Galileo, for one, famously faulted the Aristotelian law that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones, by dropping different weights from the leaning tower of Pisa — and thus showed that all objects, regardless of their weight, fell at the same speed.
Meanwhile Plato was about to return as another distinctive thinker. Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Spanish-Portuguese Jewish heritage. He rejected traditional thought and became a free thinker, synthesising original and distinct ideas that derived from no particular school of thought and gave rise to none, though his influence on later thinkers has been pervasive. He is considered the most complete modern exponent of pantheism; the doctrine that all things, of mind and matter, are manifestations of God — the universal and absolute being. He returned three centuries later, again as a philosopher, this time French.
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Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941) was of Polish-Jewish origins and became a Nobel laureate for his rich and vitalising ideas which he expressed with literary brilliance. He expounded a philosophy on the mentalist energy of life and the spiritual urge in evolution (élan vital). Herewith he counterbalanced the materialism and abstract rationalism of his contemporaries. He gnostically favoured inspired intuition over sensate intellect. His original eclectic philosophy can be considered mystical in the best sense of the word. As the last reincarnation of Plato, he completed his mission as the great philosopher of cosmic consciousness. ​
"Every philosopher has two philosophies, his own and Spinozas."
— Henri Bergson, in a letter to Léon Brunschvicg, 1927
At the same time Aristotle returned as a remarkably gifted clairvoyant. Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925) was an Austrian seer, esoteric philosopher and scientist — as well as founder of the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 after breaking with the Theosophical Society over his disagreement with its eastern religious tenets.
Steiner's Anthroposophy was instead based on Christian Gnosticism and Rosicrucianism, but he also contributed many original and seminal teachings. He advanced the science of holistic health, organic farming and child-centred education. The influential Waldorf School system is based on his ideas. Steiner has been called a 'scientist of the invisible'. As the last incarnation of Aristotle, he studied the super sensible world empirically through refined senses. He could see the operation of the spiritual forces behind the scenes of the visible world. He also penetrated through the mystery of Golgotha. He perceived it as a crossroad in the history of human consciousness — the opening of a new spiritual dimension. Steiner's Christianity was of the Cosmic Christ, the Logos, and of its operation in the evolution of the soul towards divine at-one-ment. He had come full-circle from the spiritual blindness of Aristotle to the vision of revelation.
In this life Steiner was joined by numerous soul companions, notably Marie von Sivers (1867 – 1948) and Ita Wegman (1876 – 1943, who he linked respectively to Theophrastus and Alexander the Great. Coincidentally, he also identified his wife Marie as Aquinas and his professor Schröer as Plato. We however see their karmic trajectories differently, as set out by El Ochre et al in Esoteric Biographies, c.1997.
According to El Ochre, Schröer had been Plato’s nephew Speusippus, not Plato. Speusippus was an elder in Plato's Academy and as much a teacher to Aristotle as Plato was himself. Speusippus diverged in outlook regarding certain aspects of Plato's teaching. Aristotle himself later deviated from Plato and was more in accordance with influences drawn from Speusippus. Speusippus headed the Academy upon Plato’s death and Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum. (15 February 2018)
While it was previously given that Spinoza had been a reincarnation of Plato, El Ochre has since explained that Speusippus and Spinoza were both oversouled by Pratabulu, thus linking both men to Plato. "Karmic biographies are difficult to map because it is often far more complex than merely tracking a simple lineage of a single soul. As you know, an incarnation can incorporate multiple souls and even oversouls. This can create apparent discrepancies... We can therefore connect a series of incarnations solely with regard to a particular soul or, similarly, we can follow their lineage with regard to a specific oversoul. Thus soul lineages may intersect with others at points of particular incarnations common to them." (16 February 2018)​
​El Ochre confirms Steiner has returned but "no one will find Steiner until Steiner finds himself." A cryptic remark, deliberately so, I think.
— Laurence Oliver, in response to Steiner's reappearance today, 30 March 2025
We have subsequently learnt that Ita Wegman was not Alexander but his mother, Olympias, Queen of Macedon. (16 November 2024) Alexander's soul lineage will be discussed under The Archons of Arcturus.
