About: Brendan Heard
Brendan Heard is a shadowy character of mysterious origins. Some say he appeared over the Nile one summer day, floating and shimmering as did the cosmic egg over the black water of Nu at the beginning of time. And he was heard at that time to say: ‘Lo! I am Born with Ra.’. And as the sun floated upon the water’s breast, he was with Ra then, as he was with Nu. And when Brendan, according to his desire, uttered the deep thoughts of his mind, that which he named had being. When he gazed into space, that which he desired to see appeared before him. He went about among men; he took form like unto theirs, and to him the centuries were as years.
Recent Posts by Brendan Heard
Classical Ethics – Part Two
By Brendan M.P. Heard, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom Read Classical Ethics – Part One Here The maxim, know thyself, inscribed over the opening to the very ancient Temple of Apollo at Delphi, was a traditional credo of much speculation. This call to know thyself is inextricably tied to Socrates’ belief that “the unexamined life is
Classical Ethics
By Brendan M.P. Heard, contributing writer, Classical Wisdom Ethics: the ambitious discipline of determining nothing less than what is good and what is bad, or the analysis and administration of the obligation of moral duty. One might say it is the judicial branch of philosophy, or the point at which the philosopher, after establishing whether
The Mithras Liturgy and Carl Jung
Written by Brendan Heard, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom In 1903 Albrecht Dieterich translated The Mithras Liturgy, a Greek fragment from the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris. Its subject matter is of magical incantations, but with reference to Mithraic cosmography. The text is thought to date to the 4th century AD, though Dieterich proposed a much
Alcibiades: A Lion and a Fox
Written by Brendan Heard, Author of the Decline and Fall of Western Art When I was about twenty five years of age, I read Plutarch’s Lives. I did so because I came across it in a used book shop, and it had a nice leather bound cover, and because it seemed to be a history of the
The Eternal City
Written by Brendan Heard, Author of the Decline and Fall of Western Art The Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt is a unique reference point in classical history. Most notably, our very notion of classical wisdom itself largely depends on this period, insofar as it played a role in the documentation, preservation, and accumulation of the wisdom