The Worlds of "Phaedo" and the Occult

Paper Summary:

The central thesis of this paper is the meaning of the Platonic concepts of the forms and particulars as they relate to an understanding of the occult. The difference between the forms and particulars, it is argued, is equivalent to the difference between the unknown and the known, or the strange and the familiar. The occult is viewed as the knowledge of the unknown. This view of the forms and particulars is applied using Freudian and Jungian theoretical perspectives and is applied to an analysis of "Christabel" by Coleridge, the "Blair Witch Project", and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Platonic Forms and Particulars
2.1. The Occult
3. Critical Perspective
4. Analysis of "The Blair Witch Project" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Christabel"
5. Conclusion

From the Paper:

"In his philosophy Plato distinguishes between the world of reality and the world of illusion. The world of reality and timeless truth is that of the forms. The word of illusion refers to the world of particulars and everyday experience. We exist during our lifetimes in this world of the senses or the world of particulars. For Plato and Socrates, death is the escape from the imprisonment of the world of particulars which is the reason why Socrates in the Phaedo states that he welcomes death. He believes that the soul will continue after death and the knowledge that he seeks as a philosopher will be encountered in the death state."

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