World's Nerdiest Cult Leader
Historically,
cults and their leaders haven't had much luck getting good publicity.
Maybe it's because of their intense religious fervor or their creepy
recruiting methods, but most people do their best to avoid these cliques
(not to mention the punch they serve). But hey, they aren't all bad.
Ancient mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras had his own cult (er,
"brotherhood") and if it weren't for him, children today might not be
stuck at their desks trying to understand the multiplication tables.
While most of Pythagora's philosophical beliefs seem pretty normal now,
his theories on mathematics, music, and astronomy truly salvaged his
legacy from "total whackjob" to "the father of numbers."
LET'S TALK TURKEY
Pythagoras
was born on the island of Sámos (off what is now the western coast of
Turkey) around 580 B.C.E. As a child, he spent most of his time writing
poetry, reciting Homer, and learning to play the lyre. So he was a
little precocious, to say the least. By the time Pythagoras turned 22,
he pretty much absorbed everything his primary teacher, Pherecydes, had
to offer in the areas of math and astronomy, so he was promptly shoved
off to Egypt to further his studies. Luckily for our young scholar, this
allowed him to get the heck out of Sámos, which was fast becoming a
seething pit of unrest thanks to the ruling tyrant, Polycates.
WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN
Pythagoras
made a quick beeline for the land of the Sphinx and immediately sought
out the knowledgable priests of Egypt. But temple after temple turned
him away, refusing to let him study with them because he didn't have the
proper training in fasting and breathing. That is, until he arrived on
the steps of the temple at Diospolis. There, Pythagoras was allowed to
experience this training under their guidance, and, if able to endure
the "hazing," would be admitted.
After
completing the rites necessary for admission (and learning the
extraordinariily complicated Diospolis handshake), Pythagoras was
accepted into the priesthood. He spent the next 22 years there, learning
geometry and cosmology while embracing the priesthood's other
traditions, such as living life without personal possessions, adhering
to a vegetarian diet, and, perhaps most famously, being strictly
forbidden to eat
beans. Although many historians are unsure
why, some have postulated that the bean ban was due to the fact that
they caused flatulence (still do), which destroyed the mental peace the
priesthood of Diospolis felt was necessary for meditation. Another
school of thought notes that black and white beans were used for voting
at the time, and remaining sans beans was the equivalent of being
apolitical. But, beans or not, during Pythagoras' time as a leader in
this brotherhood, he began to develop philosophical beliefs that would
one day become the cornerstone of his own teachings.
THE A'S, B'S, AND C'S OF PYTHAGORAS
At
Diospolis, Pythagoras wholeheartedly embraced the belief that the world
was ruled by a harmony that could best be expressed in terms of
numerical relationships. His first proof of this: the beloved
Pythagorean Theorem, stating that, "the sum of the areas of the squares
on the legs of a right triangle is equal to the area on the square of
the hypotenuse." Or, more simply put, "a
2+ b
2 = c
2."
Historians
actualy suspect that older civilizations were aware of this
relationship betweens the sides of a right triangle, but that Pythagoras
was the first to confirm it mathematically. And although there's
nothing in writing to prove such (Pythagoras was one of those sneaky
philosophers who kept nothing written down), it's somewhat supported by
the fact that, during Pythagoras' time in Egypt, Egyptian architects
began using the theorem to assist them in construction.
But keep
in mind that Pythagoras wasn't one of those guys who simply holed
himself up like an obsessed calculus student studying for finals (that
would come later). He also spent much of his time in Egypt trying to
better himself as a person. Building upon the priesthood's beliefs that
each human should be pure and act only in a positive manner, Pythagoras
began creating a list of "golden words." This was a selection of 71
phrases that would encourage people to attempt to ascend to the highest
level of goodness -rules and guidelines from the best way to pray to how
to stir a fire correctly. Although his quirky aphorisms reeked of an
egomaniac overcome with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, his saying helped
influence the Greek medical text, the Hippocratic Oath, which first
required doctors to adhere to professional standards to "do no harm."
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS (IF YOU LIKE DARK CAVES)
Having
spent half his lifetime away from home, Pythagoras finished his studies
in Egypt and returned to Sámos. There, he quickly developed a following
based on his ideals and philosophies, which were known as "the
semicircle of Pythagoras." When not talking numbers with his semicircle
crew, he was living in a cave. A really dark, lonely cave, but one in
which he must have been able to do some darn good thinking.
During
this period in his life, Pythagoras applied his theories on numbers and
their ratios to his second love, music, creating the "first" modern
musical scale. Like an ancient
Good Will Hunting, Pythagoras
saw numbers in everything. So when he looked next to the heavens, he was
able to roughly determine how all the planets moved within the solar
system, and that the Earth was indeed round. Such theories were adopted
later by German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, who is
best known for one of the earliest and most accurate models of our solar
system.
CULT OF PERSONALITY
Much
like modern hippies, Pythagoras and his posse practiced vegetarianism,
wore no fur, and disavowed private property. Of course, also like modern
hippies, his ideas were often approached with fear and derision. In
fact, Pythagoras' beliefs were too mad for Sámos, and the group was
eventually forced to leave town, ending up in southern Italy. In the
city of Crotona (later Croton), Pythagoras founded a philosophical and
religious school based on his life experiences and beliefs (and grew a
long, white, phiosopher beard). Appointing himself head of the society
(thank you very much), Pythagoras dubbed his inner circle of followers
the
mathematikoi. He was then quick to incorporate all that he
had come to value, including the elaborate process one had to endure in
order to gain acceptance in his "exclusive group." His Confucious-style
sayings were accompanied by the strict belief that the substance of all
things was a relationship of numbers, and without it, few things in the
universe could exist. Before, Pythagoras had evolved from a learned man
into a well-known and mystical leader of an oft-misunderstood cult.
Strangely,
no one is absolutely sure how Pythagoras met his end. While some
believe he died in the quiet darkness of his own temple, others suspect
those who were threatened by his beliefs killed him in the most ironic
of places: a bean field.
How
do you get criminal charges against you dropped? Here's the unusual story
of how one fugitive got the Feds to drop the charges against him: he's
TOO guilty!
Americans
celebrate Pi Day on March 14 (3/14), but earlier this week on August 14,
we celebrate something kind of related:
