What's old is new

Yesterday I said that new age thinking was, in many ways, old. What I mean is that these ideas have been around for a long time.

Take the popular new age saying that we are really spiritual beings in a physical body. That idea is at least 2,500 years old.

Not only that, but it is not some secret that comes out of the far east. It is well known in the west.

Plato, the Greek philosopher believed exactly that. Now, he and his followers didn't couch it in "new age" terms. Nor did they make it confusing with contradictory sayings like "do nothing and all will be done".

Plato believed that we, and everything here are imperfect models of reality. He believed the Truth existed beyond us as a set of "forms" that define the ideal thing. For example, all horses on the planet are imperfect versions of the True horse form. Similarly, everything on earth, including us, is an imperfect version of these forms.

How do we know about the forms and how do we become those forms make for an interesting discussion......