Author Archives: Pierre Beaudry

The entire planet is about to undergo a historical paradigm shift. Such an extraordinary moment, whose reason most people will not fully understand until much later, is nevertheless going to shake everyone to the core, because it will require every human being to look at the truth of the present world crisis situation, head on; and that will be frightening. This event will be a moment of emotional challenge for every human being without exception, because the truth of what people will not want to accept will be visible for everyone to see. In fact, this event will be the first in history to affect all human beings at the same time and will tend to unite every individual from around the globe for the common aims of mankind. My intention, here, is not to forecast what such an event will be, but to show you how you can see it coming by giving you an example of how a paradigm shift takes place in your mind through a unique experiment with a classical artistic composition. What I am about to show you has no visible resemblance with the name and the event that is about to take place in the world, and its full significance will not really be known to you until that historical event has hit you. All that this report can do, therefore, is to show you how to look for that coming event from the future, ahead of time, and expect to cope with it with optimism and without emotional distress. The following experiment of a geometrical paradigm shift is a crucial mental experiment designed for discovering and solving Nicholas of Cusa’s principle of the coincidence of opposite; that is, the non-visible subject matter underlying both of Raphael’s The School of Athens and The Dispute of the Holy Sacrament.

In my previous report, I investigated the significance of the Greek concept of sophrosyne that Plato developed in the Charmides and I came to the conclusion that such a forgotten concept relates to the most important quality of the human soul, which is necessary to be recovered today, in order to save civilization against the oligarchical hubris of our time. Most translators have subverted the political dimension of this virtue in Plato’s dialogues and, as a result, have let sophistry take over sophrosyne’s true significance.

In this second report, I would like to emphasize the moral and epistemological dimension of sophrosyne, not only with Socrates and Plato, but also with Saint Paul and Saint Augustine. The difference between sophistry and reality is difficult to decipher because it is always easier to lie than to tell the truth; and for the same reason, it is always easier to find ways to deceive people through sophistry than to discover ways to improve their minds through sophrosyne.

Charmides is possibly one of the least understood of Plato’s dialogues, but whose significance is most important for our time. The dialogue is a difficult one because it is centered on the concept of sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη), a term that cannot be translated by any single word in any language, including Greek. For Socrates, the idea of sophrosyne was so difficult to define that after an extensive discussion with Charmides and Critias, he concluded that he was incapable of giving it a precise meaning because the nature of the concept was so varied and contradictory in its application.

The fact that most people living in the world today are caught in the trap of sense-deception is not an accident. It is because they lack a sense of proportion, which is the true sixth sense. As Plato reflected on the process of knowledge in the seventh book of the Republic, he came to this crucial point at which he said: “As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.” (Jowett, 534a) This epistemological relationship is what is called a double mean incommensurable proportionality which the human mind must use when it needs to successfully complete a process of axiomatic change or a paradigm shift.

Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy (GAMA) were the four domains of knowledge that Pythagoras inherited from the ancient Egyptian science of Sphaerics, which he developed in the form of a Quadrivium program for the education of children in ancient Greece. This is how Archytas, Socrates, and Plato, among many others, were educated in order to become Promethean creative thinkers. Pythagoras chose those four domains of knowledge as the basis for all knowledge because they were each in its own way oriented toward the future.