GOLDEN VERSES STEP 15

REFUSING TO BE PROVOKED OR LEAD ASTRAY

In this 15^th step, we are put on our honour to restrain ourselves from entering the ring where we might be made into a punch-bag for the opinions and expectations of both enemies and loved-ones. This is where our loyalties alone can make us come out fighting, determined to overcome all that works against us. In so doing, we may fall into the pit of provocation which can result in words and actions that are actually detrimental to our well-being.

WHATEVER THE PROVOCATION

§ Ensure you apply on every occasion, what I am going to tell you now:

Let no-one provoke you, by word or by deed, to do or say anything

That is not the best choice for yourself. §

-verses 25-7)

Scylla..

WHATEVER THE PROVOCATION…?

Our pilgrimage to the country of our soul is beset with many paths which cross our main trajectory. We can so easily be lead astray or provoked into responses that take us far from our goal. The lyrics to Tim Wheeler’s song, Goldfinger, from the James Bond soundtrack, sung by Shirley Bassey, are relevant to our study, for the kind of persuasion we are likely to fall prey to can have a deadly effect upon the soul:

‘Golden words he will pour in your ear,
But his lies can't disguise what you fear.
For a golden girl knows when he's kissed her
It's the kiss of death from Mister Goldfinger.’

For the Greeks, the equivalent of Mr Goldfinger and his persuasions, was feminine, not masculine, as we shall discover later on in this step.

We live in world where many voices are striving for our attention. We are also surrounded on every side by advertising: whether we listen to the jingle or even notice its slogan, or whether we try to avoid hearing or seeing it, it is sometimes hard to miss. In terms of social media, we are encouraged to listen to the opinions of our peers and to the blandishments of ‘influencers’ which can work insidiously upon us, boring into our consciousness like wood-worm, leaving channels down which other persuasions can trickle before travelling onwards. From the surface all looks fine, but then you lift to inspect what lies underneath and find it is already too late, because the network of wormholes will have spread quicker and deeper than you can have guessed.

Then there is the expectation of society that we should do, say, wear, or think a certain way, where peer pressure and subtle enforcements militate to stamped us into particular channels. In the unsubtle times through which we are living, there are vigilantes, nosy neighbours, whistle-blowers and trolls enough to go round to report you for stepping out of line, or for perpetrating some lèse-majesté of a high order. And we are not even talking about the Mafia here, where persuasions have become blackmailed loyalties dressed up to look like ‘honour,’ and where extortion, torture and death are the unbeautiful scaffolding that holds up Casa Nostra.

Closer to home there are the opinions and expectations of our family and friends which create a background against which we are often judged: if we do not line up in ranks with them, but rather chose to follow our singular or different path, we will no longer belong to the family or to the group – for both family and friends can have values that are exclusive to their circle.

Provocation is something that springs out of us when we attempt to defend ourselves against unjust or untrue sayings. When the yardsticks of opinion measure you as wanting from the accepted norm, how do we preserve ourselves? Retaliatory statements and unfortunate ripostes can lead us into areas that we would rather not inhabit. Hierocles reminds us of our daily reading:

‘The Golden Verses advises us to surround ourselves with the protective ring of virtues, when it says we should not obey anyone who tries to distract us from virtue, whatever the deeds or words by which they would attempt to persuade us to turn to the worse for example. Do not let the tyrant try to shake our constancy with threats, punishments, or bribes to compel you to deviate from virtue. And, likewise, never let any person who pretends to be a friend, even though they hide their ill intentions under an outward show of the most tender friendship, convince you to turn away from what is profitable to the soul.’ (GV, XIII,9)

As to our best choices: your choices will not be my ones, nor yours mine. Judging and discerning with our soul what is best for each of us is an art, one which we sometimes have to walk like a tightrope over a cavernous void. For example, in a world where a woman’s word was hardly heeded seriously, Pythagoras advised his female followers to ‘speak auspiciously’ throughout their whole lives, and to see that others spoke auspiciously when referring to them. (Iamb VP 11,55) He was speaking here of not just of gossip and the maintenance of a good reputation, but also of the destructive power of speech that can confuse understanding, break confidences, and bring pain to oneself as well as to others. Speaking inauspiciously, if you were a woman, could well result in becoming divorced and having your children taken away, especially if words of reproof or irritation annoyed your partner. It could be equally disastrous for men in public office, where reputations rested upon your loyal following of a powerful patron, and keeping to the party-line.

In step 14, we were advised to ‘withdraw mildly’, but now we are deeper in, where the consequences may be more severe. Provocation is one of the chief triggers of reactivity. As children, any mocking words in the play-ground could tip us rapidly into tears, humiliation, angry words, or blows, depending on the nature of the provocation. But in the courts of law, we hear the same sorry stories, only amplified to a far more serious level, where spouses, employees, boyfriends, or citizens who’ve taken too much provocation have killed, maimed, stolen, destroyed, or defamed their provokers in an attempt to get even, or to defend their position.

So, how do we make the best choices and apply our determination not to be provoked?

OUR BEST CHOICE

Our best choice for ourselves is something that we can see clearly in our quiet moments. But life is not always so clearly delineated. Our best choice may sometimes be dependent upon another person, or entwined with another circumstance because we have invested ourselves in someone or something, rather than our best interest. An unclear or unexamined value system can be leading us into a labyrinth of choices that are merely wrapping us around. Questions like, ‘Do I remain part of a virtually defunct but prestigious group because it confers reflected glory upon me or looks good on my CV?’ Or, ‘I want to spend my life painting, as I know I can earn an honest living at that, but because Doreen wants me to help her with the market gardening, what can I do?’ Whether we are trying to please or appease someone, or become embroiled in some enterprise that is not really a good fit for us, we can go on ignoring our best choice. Epictetus challenges us to get our priorities and position right first,

‘When we love, and hate and fear these things, it must be that those who have the power over them must be our masters. For which reason, we adore them even as gods; thinking that whoever possesses the power of conferring the greatest advantage on us is somehow divine. Then we wrongly assume that a such a person has the power of conferring the greatest advantages; therefore, they are something divine. For if we wrongly assume that a certain person has the power of conferring the greatest advantages, it is a necessary consequence that the conclusion from these premises must be false. (ED 4:1, 61-62)

The classical example of how we must sometimes take extreme measures to protect ourselves against persuasion is found in the Odyssey where Odysseus has to sail between Scylla and Charybdis: these two beings guard the very narrow strait that his ship has to pass through: and if one doesn’t get you, then the other will. If he is not snatched from his ship by Scylla – a 12 foot high monster with six heads, each with three rows of teeth, who hunts for prey in a hidden cave - then he might be pulled under by Charybdis, which sucks ships down into its black whirlpool. Fortunately, he is. forewarned by the goddess Circe, and his steersman hugs the cliff to avoid being dragged down, while he himself avoids speaking to Scylla, who nevertheless removes six shipmates from the body of the vessel. But their voyage is not yet done, and an even greater terror lies ahead. (Homer, Odyssey)

Odysseus tells us himself what happened: “‘Circe, the beautiful goddess, told me to avoid the voice of the wondrous Sirens, and their flowery meadow. Me alone she bade to listen to their voice; but, shipmen, bind me with grievous bonds, that I may abide fast where I am, upright in the step of the mast, and let the ropes be made fast at the ends to the mast itself; and if I implore and bid you to loose me, then do ye tie me fast with yet more bonds.’

I rehearsed all these things and told them to my comrades. Meanwhile the well-built ship speedily came to the isle of the two Sirens, for a fair and gentle wind bore her on. Then presently the wind ceased and there was a windless calm, and a god lulled the waves to sleep. But my comrades rose up and furled the sail and stowed it in the hollow ship, and thereafter sat at the oars and made the water white with their polished oars of fir. But I with my sharp sword cut into small bits a great round cake of wax, and kneaded it with my strong hands, and soon the wax grew warm, forced by the strong pressure and the rays of the lord Helios Hyperion. Then I anointed with this the ears of all my comrades in turn; and they bound me in the ship hand and foot, upright in the step of the mast, and made the ropes fast at the ends to the mast itself; and themselves sitting down smote the grey sea with their oars.

But when we were as far distant as a man can make himself heard when he shouts, driving swiftly on our way, the Sirens failed not to note the swift ship as it drew near, and they raised their clear-toned song: ‘Come hither, as you sail, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans; stay your ship that you may listen to the voice of us two. For never yet has any man rowed past this isle in his black ship until he has heard the sweet voice from our lips. Nay, he has joy of it, and goes his way a wiser man. For we know all the toils that in wide Troythe Argives and Trojans endured through the will of the gods, and we know all things that come to pass upon the fruitful earth.’ So they spoke, sending forth their beautiful voice, and my heart was fain to listen, and I bade my comrades loose me, nodding to them with my brows; but they fell to their oars and rowed on. And presently Perimedes and Eurylochus arose and bound me with yet more bonds and drew them tighter. But when they had rowed past the Sirens, and we could no more hear their voice or their song, then straightway my trusty comrades took away the wax with which I had anointed their ears and loosed me from my bonds. (Homer, Odyssey, book 12)

Without the wax, Odysseus would have been lost entirely, since the Sirens were ultimately persuasive. The bottom line on what is our best choice is this, as Hierocles tells us:

‘The only things profitable to your soul are virtue and truth. Being mindful of this, you will be out of reach of all frauds and all the deceits; if you know your own essence. what it is, and whom it resembles, you will always take all possible care to preserve that likeness. You will regard everything that can erase or change it as the greatest misfortune that can ever happen to you, as the greatest loss that you can suffer. Nothing could be profitable for you that can make you lose this divine likeness. Seeing that whatever preserves this likeness must be for your advantage, no better offer can be made to you that could possibly be of sufficient value to make you renounce such a divine good. (GV.XIII, 10-11)

PROPITIATING OF PACIFYING PEITHO?

Peitho and Aphrodite.

I promised to speak about the Greek divinity of persuasion and here she is: Peitho, (pye’tho) the Greek Goddess of Persuasion, one of the many daughters of Tethys and Oceanos, the Titanic gods of the sea. She runs like an unexpected undertow throughout Greek myth as a goddess both of persuasion, and also of seduction, one who is most often to be seen in the retinue of Aphrodite, with whom she was in cahoots. Peitho is the one who hastens the bridegroom to the bridal chamber, and there is very little that daunts her because she will sidle up to anyone, except one. We are told that: ‘Alone of all the gods, Thanatos (Death) loves no gifts: neither by sacrifice nor libation can you prevail over him; he has no altar, nor any hymn of praise; from him, alone of the gods, even Peitho stands far off.’ Aeschylus, Fragment 82 Niobe (from Stobaeus, Anthology 4. 51. 1) trans. CM.

Yes, that’s right, Peitho will be at your side the whole time while you are alive, but even she draws the line at Death! He’s the only not worth her bothering with because he gives no quarter, and Death’s grim ears are shut forever to her persuasions.

The question of propitiating the gods comes to mind here: do we make Peithio offerings to go away and not bother us, or should we seek to pacify her? As we already know, the more we enter into debate with persuaders, the sooner we turn off the restraints, we become mollified into giving in, which is why these verses stress that it is ‘on every occasion’ that we are to abide by our own soul’s guide, if we are to keep the inner citadel secure. Half-doing, or half-speaking, against persuasion isn’t enough. Everyone has a little part of Peitho already present – the part that, at the end of long day, or after a particularly difficult stint of work, we acquiesce to the small pleasures of propitiation for our worn-out bodies. This is one of the reasons why Peithio goes about with Aphrodite – she who is all beauty and love, has a seductive companion who helps us take off the restraints. While we should all give Aphrodite her due, with an innocent heart, we have to be more careful with Peithio. She is not pacifiable, and propitiation merely drags us off course.

This is why we need a firm, daily spiritual practice that can come quickly to our defence when we are tempted to do or say things that take us out of our inner citadel or open it to attack by others. Whether you allow yourself to marinade in a sumptuous clothes catalogue (guilty as charged, your honour!) or to listen to the blandishments of friends who want your compliance and companionship to join a group or movement that feels inharmonioius with your own natural mode, we all need a quick reminder of where we stand.

The usually-undaunted St Theresa of Avila wrote the following prayer in her breviary, reminding herself what she needed to do when persuasion came calling:

Nada te turbe, 
nada te espante, 
todo se pasa; 
Dios no se muda. 
La paciencia 
todo lo alcanza; 
Quien a Dios tiene, 
nada le falta; 
Solo Dios basta

Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing surprise you,
All things are passing;
God never changes;
Patient endurance 
Reaches to everything;
A soul held divinely 
Shall never be wanting. 
God alone satisfies.  (trans. CM)

Whether you are following a Neoplatonic or other spiritual way of life, the deep creative Spirit maintains our inner citadel every moment. This is sanctuary of which Hallowquest Sanctuary is just one example - a place where our soul can be in an inviolate space. Where we can ask questions, seek answers, and come to the heart of our own quest.

§ CONSIDER §

• What brings you out fighting quicker than anything? Consider the occasions where you’ve done so? What resulted from your being provoked?

• In his work on Rhetoric, Aristotle wrote about how persuasion is evoked by a triad of approaches:

Ethos: the credibility that someone possesses that evokes in us a sense of trustworthiness.

Pathos: what appeals to our emotions and confers on us sense of intimacy and trust.

Logos: what appeals to our reason, while the well-orderedness of its construction leads us to a sense of rightness.

Choose an incident where persuasions led you into boggy terrain and uncover what were the main provocations in this case, how did one or more of these three approaches conspire? How were you colluding with what was false, or deluding yourself, or what were you excluding g from the whole picture?

• What are your own safeguards against persuasions?

MEDITATION

One of things that comes over from both Epictetus and from St Theresa of Avila is the ability not to be surprised. It is something that we also find in Marcus Aurelius who practiced the art of not being disturbed or surprised by life every morning: I place his words alongside his thoughts on how we approach the ‘stuff that happens’ every day and where it sits with in us in the larger scheme of eternity and causation.

‘First thing every morning tell yourself; today I am going to meet a busybody, an ungrateful person, a bully, a liar, a schemer, and a rude person. Ignorance of good and evil has made them what they are. But through contemplation, I know that the good is by nature beautiful and evil is by nature ugly. I also know that these wrongdoers are by nature my brothers, not by blood or breeding, but by being similarly endowed with noose and sharing in the divine. None of them can harm me, for non-can force me to do wrong against my will.’ (Marcus Aurelius, Med. 2,1)

‘Love only the event which happens to us, and which is linked to us by destiny. After all what could be better suited to us? (ibid.V11, 57) Such and such an event happened to you, was coordinated with you, was set in relation to you, was woven together with you, from the beginning, starting from the most ancient of causes.(V, 8,12) Has something happened to you? Good! Every event which comes your way has been linked to you by destiny, has been woven together with you, starting from the whole, since the beginning. (ibid. IV, 26, 4) Whatever happens to you was prepared for you in advance from all eternity, and the network of courses has woven together your substance and the occurrence of this event for all time. (ibid. X,5)

---

Coming to place of peace with words is something I will doing in August, as I have invited a dear friend to lead a special way of council for my group: this is open also to others. It takes place in the most beautiful setting of Hawkwood College, Stroud, Gloucestershire, where I have taught for the last 40 years.

22-24 August 2025 THE WAY OF COUNCIL: with Pippa Bondy, introduced by Caitlín Matthews This ancient practice of sitting in a circle and speaking and listening from the heart is our innate birth-right. In modern times the core practice of Council sets a container for empathy and honesty. It provides a way of bearing witness and accepts diversity in our self and each other and helps cultivate non-hierarchical power. When in Council we step into a timeless space and the creative source flows through us. Through the medium of The Way of Council we will embrace the spirit of enquiry; meaning to open a space of ‘not knowing’ - allowing a state of creativity, a field of fresh new energy and awareness that onnects us to a deeper wisdom within. The practice of Council deepens and enhances communication anywhere that dialogue takes place, be it the home, work-place or wider community, offering an effective means of resolving conflicts, making decisions in a group framework and discovering the deeper, often unexpressed needs of individuals and organizations. Council has been used and is effective in many different settings from health care, schools, businesses and community groups.

Pippa Bondy is a wilderness rites of passage guide and a carrier/trainer of Council. She will lead us to experience the empty vessel that Council provides to look at truth, intentions, questions, fixed ideas, mistakes, and other issues in ways that will help support ourselves, our shamanic clients, our community and the world. Fees: Single £495, Shared £445, Non-res £345.) Please send your non-returnable deposit of £150 payable to Hawkwood College, Painswick Old Rd., Stroud, Glos GL6 7QW (01453 759034)

Here is a short video about Pippa, whom you can also follow here on Substack:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-157622359?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web