Pythagoreanism: The story of Pythagoras and his “irrational” cult

A 6th-century BCE Greek philosopher and mathematician,

originally from Samos (an island off the coast of Asia Minor settled by
the Greeks), and born about 570 BCE, he left home and "by his own
choice / Became an exile" (Ovid 354) around 530 BCE to escape the
tyranny of the autocrat Polycrates. He lived in southern Italy, influencing
city politics until the turn of the century when the citizens revolted
against his influence and forced him to settle in Metapontum instead.
Followers venerated him and they formed some sort of quasi-religious
order. Although he did not set down his ideas in written form,
Pythagorean centers sprang up throughout the Greek mainland during the
5th century BCE, including in Thebes and Athens, so he certainly
influenced Socrates and therefore Plato. Legends include an instance of a
superhuman voice wishing Pythagoras good morning as he was crossing
the river Casas, and his being able to appear in both Croton and
Metapontum on the same day at the same hour. Pythagoras' concepts
included the mathematical order of the cosmos, and he may have been
led to this assessment from the mathematical order of music (consonants of octaves, fifths, and fourths
being produced by simple ratios in the lengths of the vibrating strings). We know "the square of the
hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the sides containing the right angle."
But Pythagoras had an all-inclusive vision, which also included the "music of the spheres" (the sound that
no doubt had to be produced by the planets encircling earth). These principles signified that the universe
does make sense and that we have the potential to understand it. He supposedly coined the term
"Philosophy" first as a word to signify the love and pursuit of wisdom, which helps the soul bring itself
into attunement with the cosmos. Pythagoras believed in reincarnation and claimed to remember previous
incarnations. [Transmigration of souls is not a Greek leaning, so one school of thought says Pythagoras
travelled east beyond Egypt and came back with the notion (but they say this of Jesus too).] A later report
claims he told followers that he has once been Aethalides, a son of Hermes, who allowed him one wish
excluding immortality. He wished to remember what happened to him, alive and dead. One of his
remembered incarnations was as Euphorbus, who was wounded by Menelaus in Homer's Iliad.
Afterwards, he became Hermotimus, who in a temple of Apollo identified the shield of Menelaus
(dedicated to Apollo when he sailed back from Troy). His next incarnation was as Pyrrhus the Delian
fisherman, and then Pythagoras. There is a famous story that he once stopped an animal from being
beaten because he insisted he recognized the voice of a dead friend. (I wonder if that might not have been
merely a humane device to stop the beating of an animal.) (Asimov 535) "He was first to ban / As for for
men the flesh of living things" (354). Due partly to his belief in metempsychosis, he opposed the taking of
life, the eating of flesh, and association with those who benefit by the slaughter business. Ovid provides a
lengthy, humane, and eloquent explanation for vegetarianism, citing the benificence of the earth and its
animals, not requiring slaughter. "Nor is that crime enough. Even the gods / They enrol to share their guilt
and make believe / The powers of Heaven are gladdened by the blood / Of bullocks, patient slaughtered
labourers" (355-356). [Var.: "We call the gods as partners of the feast" -- quoted from Virgil.]
Pythagoras of Samos was a famous Greek mathematician and philosopher ( c. 570 — c. 495 BC).
Pythagoras is associated with the famous geometric theorem that bears his name. The theorem states that
“In a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two
sides.”
We all know about this. But back in his day, he was known as a mystic and a prophet. He was the
founder of Pythagoreanism, a cult based on the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his
followers, the Pythagoreans. In Croton he became the spiritual leader of a secret society based on a
philosophical religion. Pythagoreans survived in Italy for nearly two hundred years after his death, and his
doctrines continued to be taught until the sixth century CE.
The Pythagoreans were the first to study the regular solids. Pythagoras is said to have known of
the cube and the tetrahedron, and there is a longstanding scholarly disagreement over whether he also
knew of the icosahedron and the octahedron. [Platonic solid]
By the People, For the People
Many think very highly about democracy, a rule, of the people, by the people, and for the people.
A by-product of the Ancient Athenian Civilization. For it to work effectively, the people who vote need to
have knowledge of the political know-how, at least this is what Socrates also believed in. When we let the
not so rational vote, we give rise to not democracy, but demagoguery.
Demagoguery gives rise to cult groups. The person with the most followers wins. Socrates was
to have first hand of demagoguery, the catastrophic experience of the foolishness of voters. In 399 BC, the
philosopher was put on trial on trumped up charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. A jury of 500
Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided by a narrow margin that the philosopher was
guilty. He was put to death by hemlock in a tragic painful process.
The Pythagoreans are a prime example of such an irrational cult group.
….
The Pythagorean
“What distinguished the Pythagoreans was their means of purifying the mind. They did not
achieve purity by meditating, but by studying mathematics and science.”
The Pythagorean brotherhood was not unlike other cults of the day. The members were chosen
very carefully — they participated in an initiation, endured ritual purifications, and took a vow of secrecy.
They lived by a set of strict, sometimes bizarre, rules. According to legend, they were vegetarians, but
were prohibited from eating beans; they could not stir a fire with a knife; they could not wear rings; and
they had to touch the earth when it thundered.
The Pythagoreans believed in the transmigration of souls — that the souls of the dead returned as
animals, and entered an infinite cycle of reincarnation moving up or down through the ranks of animals
and humans. The only way to escape this cycle was through purification of body and mind. As in many
cults, the purification of the body was achieved through modest living, abstinence, and restraint.
The ultimate union with the divine was said to follow from an understanding of the order of the
universe, and the key to understanding the universe was to understand mathematics. Pythagoras said,
“Beatitude is the knowledge of the perfection of the numbers of the soul.” This belief is expressed very
succinctly by the Pythagoreans’ motto, “All is number.”
 The Pythagoreans believed that God ordered the universe with numbers, and that every number
could be expressed as a ratio of two whole numbers. Using modern terminology, the Pythagoreans
believed that all numbers are rational.
Since mathematics was part of their religion, and Pythagoras was their spiritual leader, any
mathematical result obtained by his followers was “the word of the master” and was attributed to him.
The “irrational” cult

According to legend, one of the Pythagoreans, Hippasus of Metapontum (c. 500 BCE), did not
follow this tradition of deference, and was severely disciplined. One account states that he was drowned
at sea, while another contends that he was expelled from the Pythagoreans and a tombstone was erected
for him as a symbolic send-off. Again, accounts differ on what Hippasus had done to deserve this harsh
treatment, and there are two competing stories (both of which may be true).

1. Dodecahedron
One tale suggests that Hippasus discovered the dodecahedron and
showed how to inscribe it in a sphere, but he failed to give credit to
Pythagoras. This discovery may have been especially meaningful to
the Pythagoreans because of the dodecahedron’s pentagonal faces.
They adopted the pentagram, or pentagon-star, which was the Greek
symbol for health, as the special symbol used to identify others in the
brotherhood. The pentagram is created by connecting the vertices of a
regular pentagon, and doing so creates a new regular pentagon inside
it.

2. Irrational Number
The second tale states that Hippasus proved that not every
number is rational, and he failed to keep this discovery a secret.
That all numbers are rational was one of the supporting pillars of
the Pythagoreans’ system of beliefs. The existence of an irrational
number was a devastating and damaging realisation. It is in this
light that we can imagine their outrage at Hippasus.
The discovery of irrational numbers is said to have been
so shocking to the Pythagoreans, and Hippasus is supposed to
have drowned at sea, apparently as a punishment from their gods
for divulging this.

Ironically, the proof of the existence of an irrational number is one of the most significant and
lasting contributions of the Pythagoreans to mathematics. Funny isn’t it? Throughout history, such
dogmatism has often found itself in harsh opposition to evident reality. Bringing together a group of well
educated scientists does not guarantee an utopian or an egalitarian society. We need a rational mind which
is willing to accept the truth and change for the better. A mind, which does not subordinate its grasp of
reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; nor sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to
anyone’s opinions, threats or wishes. And that I think is what helps us evolve into good human beings and
form a better peaceful society that we all wish to live in.
Of all the math they knew, sadly, the pythagoreans could not understand something as simple as this.

References
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoreanism/
https://esoterx.com/2014/12/03/murder-by-math-the-irrational-demise-of-hippasus/
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/eulers-gem/9781400838561/xhtml/chapter04.html
https://nrich.maths.org/2671
https://boxingpythagoras.com/2014/02/26/the-legend-of-hippasus/
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