In the 6th century BC, in a city named Croton, Pythagoras was building himself a cult.
Throughout the ages, countless rituals, customs, ideas, and beliefs have been attributed to this cult. One of the most notable is a prohibition on eating beans. Beans? Yes, beans.
No one really knows why. Some say it was for health reasons. Others suggest it was simply because beans make people fart, and that was seen as a bad sign. Another theory suggests that beans and humans were thought to be related, so eating beans was perceived as almost like eating human flesh.
Food was a ‘thing’ in the cult. Beans weren’t the only form of nutrition Pythagoras taught his followers to abstain from. Meat, fish, eggs, and alcohol were a no-go. Instead, they followed a vegetarian diet.
The reason Pythagoras was so focused on diet relates directly to his belief in the transmigration of souls, which is essentially reincarnation, and also explains why his followers had to refrain from wearing animal skins as clothing.
Pythagoras thought that after a body dies, the soul lives on. And the soul could go from human to human, but also from human to animal and vice versa. One day, he saw someone beating a puppy. He intervened and said, “Stop! Don’t hit it! It’s the soul of a friend of mine. I knew it when I heard it cry.”
And that’s why eating meat was not allowed. After all, you never knew if you were eating your grandma for dinner.
And Pythagoras even claimed to remember some of his own past lives. He claimed to have lived as Aethalides, son of the god Hermes, as well as Euphorbus, a hero of the Trojan War, and as Pyrrhus, a fisherman.
Within the cult, personal possessions were also not allowed; everything was shared, which surely stood in sharp contrast to the lives of many Greeks who often accumulated a lot of wealth.
So, the cult was a countermovement; they sought to live better lives, different from the norm, going against the grain. They opposed the decadence and moral decline around them, choosing instead moderation and simplicity. They wanted to purify themselves.
This week's video explores Pythagoras and his curious cult.
Einzelgänger
In the 6th century BC, in a city named Croton, Pythagoras was building himself a cult.
Throughout the ages, countless rituals, customs, ideas, and beliefs have been attributed to this cult. One of the most notable is a prohibition on eating beans. Beans? Yes, beans.
No one really knows why. Some say it was for health reasons. Others suggest it was simply because beans make people fart, and that was seen as a bad sign. Another theory suggests that beans and humans were thought to be related, so eating beans was perceived as almost like eating human flesh.
Food was a ‘thing’ in the cult. Beans weren’t the only form of nutrition Pythagoras taught his followers to abstain from. Meat, fish, eggs, and alcohol were a no-go. Instead, they followed a vegetarian diet.
The reason Pythagoras was so focused on diet relates directly to his belief in the transmigration of souls, which is essentially reincarnation, and also explains why his followers had to refrain from wearing animal skins as clothing.
Pythagoras thought that after a body dies, the soul lives on. And the soul could go from human to human, but also from human to animal and vice versa. One day, he saw someone beating a puppy. He intervened and said, “Stop! Don’t hit it! It’s the soul of a friend of mine. I knew it when I heard it cry.”
And that’s why eating meat was not allowed. After all, you never knew if you were eating your grandma for dinner.
And Pythagoras even claimed to remember some of his own past lives. He claimed to have lived as Aethalides, son of the god Hermes, as well as Euphorbus, a hero of the Trojan War, and as Pyrrhus, a fisherman.
Within the cult, personal possessions were also not allowed; everything was shared, which surely stood in sharp contrast to the lives of many Greeks who often accumulated a lot of wealth.
So, the cult was a countermovement; they sought to live better lives, different from the norm, going against the grain. They opposed the decadence and moral decline around them, choosing instead moderation and simplicity. They wanted to purify themselves.
This week's video explores Pythagoras and his curious cult.
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 780