Dante and Spiritual Intelligence - a lecture to the Temenos Academy

This lecture was given to the Temenos Academy on Tuesday 19th
October 2021 - a particular delight as it was on its perennial
philosophy course that the Divine Comedy first began to open up
to me. See here for more details -
https://www.temenosacademy.org

I make some remarks on the Inferno and Purgatorio first, about
how spiritual intelligence recognises the significance of now and
knowing yourself.

However, as we live in an age that finds the Paradiso
increasingly incomprehensible, most of the lecture looks at the
10 domains of paradise visited by Dante and what they represent
for the development of his spiritual intelligence.

In short, he sees how reality is characterised by abundance not
scarcity, generosity not possessiveness, and comedy not tragedy -
not because of any glib universalism, but because love, light and
life can embrace hate, darkness and death.

Dante enters:
- The Moon in which he learns of qualities as guides, over
quantities
- Mercury in which he learns of harmonising with divine
light
- Venus in which he learns the essence of eros
- The Sun in which he learns of the passion that unites
difference
- Mars in which he learns the true nature of sacrifice
- Jupiter in which he learns how individuality links to all
- Saturn in which he learns the necessity of seeing the eternal
face
- The Fixed Stars in which he learns of radiating with all
beings
- The Primum Mobile in which he learns of speaking with the
divine voice
- The Empyrean in which he learns of the nature of eternity.