From The East September 2025

Brethren,

I am sure everyone enjoyed their Summer. And what is not to like. Summer is the season of traveling and the beach. It is time spent with family and friends. Summer is for outdoor activities and the pool. And, it is a period of transition for our school aged children. But now that Summer is coming to an end, it is time for us to renew our commitment to our Lodge and our Fraternity. Brothers, we have a busy Autumn ahead of us so I am asking everyone to think about what it is you want from Freemasonry? Then, assist me in helping you achieve your Masonic goals. Let’s close out 2025 in splendid fashion!

PYTHAGORAS (part II)

As mentioned last month, Pythagoras is credited with numerous discoveries and teachings. And, although scholars debate whether he actually made every discovery attributed to him, it is still worth exploring further. Among the fields Pythagoras is ascribed to have delved into are mathematics, music, astronomy, numerology and metempsychosis. The discovery most associated with Pythagoras is the so-called Pythagorean Theorem which states- “in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal [to the sum of] the squares of the two other sides”—that is, a² + b² = c². Although he has been credited with this geometric proposition since at least the 1st century BC, it is obvious that it was known long before his lifetime For example, the theorem is known to have been used by the Babylonians and Indians for centuries prior to Pythagoras lifetime.

Another discovery credited to Pythygoras is Pythagorean Tuning. According to legend, Pythagoras discovered that musical notes could be translated into mathematical equations when he passed blacksmiths at work. As the story goes, upon hearing the clanging of the blacksmiths at work, he began thinking that the sounds were beautiful and harmonious, except for one. Whereupon, he rushed into the blacksmith shop and began testing the hammers. It was then he realized that the tune played when the hammer struck was directly proportional to the size of the hammer and therefore concluded that music was mathematical. In ancient times, Pythagoras and his contemporary Parmenides of Elea were both credited with having been the first to teach that the Earth was spherical and the first to divide the globe into 5 climate zones. The five major climate zones include tropical (humid and hot), dry (very little precipitation), moderate (warm and humid in the summer with mild winters), continental (warm summers along with very cold winters), and polar (the coldest of all). Likewise, he is said to have been the first to identify the morning star and the evening star as the same celestial object (now known to be Venus). By the end of the fifth century BC, all these facts were universally accepted among Greek intellectuals. Another astronomical belief attributed to Pythagoras was the “harmony of the spheres.” This theory maintains that the planets and stars move according to mathematical equations which correspond to musical notes and thus produce an inaudible symphony. Nonetheless,modern scholars typically ascribe these discoveries to the later Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus of Croton (c. 470 – c. 385 BC), whose extant fragments are the earliest texts to describe the numerological and musical theories that were later ascribed to Pythagoras. For the later Pythagoreans, Pythagoras was credited with devising the tetractys, the triangular figure of four rows which add up to the “perfect” number, ten. The Pythagoreans regarded the tetractys as a symbol of utmost mystical importance.

Iamblichus, in his Life of Pythagoras, states that the tetractys was “so admirable, and so divinised by those who understood it, that Pythagoras students would swear oaths on it. One of Pythagoras’s main doctrines appears to have been metempsychosis. This belief expounds that all souls are immortal and that, after death, a soul is transferred into a new body. The earliest source on Pythagoras’s metempsychosis is a satirical poem probably written after his death by the Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570 – c. 478 BC), who had been one of his contemporaries. Xenophanes describes Pythagoras interceding on behalf of a dog that is being beaten, professing to recognize in its cries the voice of a departed friend. Empedocles alludes in one of his poems that Pythagoras may have claimed to possess the ability to recall his former incarnations. Diogenes Laërtius reports an account from Heraclides Ponticus that Pythagoras told people that he had lived four previous lives that he could remember in detail. The first of these lives was as Aethalides the son of Hermes, who granted him the ability to remember all his past incarnations. Next, he was incarnated as Euphorbus, a minor hero from the Trojan War briefly mentioned in the Iliad. He then became the philosopher Hermotimus, who recognized the shield of Euphorbus in the temple of Apollo. His final incarnation was as Pyrrhus, a fisherman from Delos. One of his past lives, as reported by Dicaearchus, was as a beautiful courtesan. Pythagoras’s influence on western culture is far reaching. Many of the greatest minds in history owe much to Pythagoras and his followers. Pythagoras influenced Plato whose dialogues (especially Timaeus) exhibit Pythagorean ideas. A major revival of his teachings occurred in the first century BC among Middle Platonists, coinciding with the rise of Neopythagoreanism. Pythagoras continued to be regarded as a great philosopher throughout the Middle Ages and Pythagoreanism had an influence on scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton. Pythagorean symbolism was also used throughout early modern European esotericism, and his teachings as portrayed in Ovid’s Metamorphoses would later influence the modern vegetarian movement. I hope you enjoyed my brief history of Pythagoras. Whether or not he actually made all the advances attributed to him is for historians. What is certain is that his philosophical teachings, theorems and pronouncements all had a profound impact on Western Society.

Jeffrey Reinsch
Worshipful Master