Pythagoras: The Philosopher, Mathematician, Cult Leader...

Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog!! I have been super busy lately trying to finish this essay for my school's essay competition. I finally was able to finish on Tuesday with a grand total of 3,113 words (pretty cool palindrome, I know) and my mind has been absolutely fried to say the least. Additionally, I have been helping my parents set up for a festival and I'm going to start working on the stand when the festival starts which is later today. I'm super excited because I really love this festival but also I'm incredibly drained. I've been trying to find a bit of stillness in my ever so hectic life but it gets hard when everyone around you is a hustler. I thought I'd write about something very lighthearted today because I am a bit of a mess so I thought, why not write a bit about Pythagoras and the cult he started? I thought it was a bit of a weird topic and I've been trying to write more meaningful things on here but then I realised that it's literally my blog and I've written about why I want to be a fairy before so I don't think it gets worse than that.

We all know Pythagoras as the mathematician who came up with the ever so famous 'Pythagoras theorem' (although a mathematician in India called Baudhayan actually discovered it before him). A few people don't know but he was also a philosopher, one of his most famous philosophies being the transmigration of souls into a new body which heavily influenced Plato's work (although many sources have said that a lot of Greek philosophy was based off of Indian philosophy). The one thing many people do not know is that he actually started a cult. While I could write about his mathematical discoveries or his philosophical doctrines, I'm going to write about how his death was caused by fava beans.

His 'cult' was based off his beliefs called Pythagoreanism and his followers were called Pythagoreans. I mean I guess his cult was based off of some of his philosophies. For example, because he believed that the soul can transmigrate to a human or animal body, everyone in his cult were vegetarians. Continuing on the topic of weird diets, he had his obsession with not eating fava beans. He believed that expelling gas took away the 'breath of life' or a part of their soul and since fava beans did not work with that principle, nobody following him could eat fava beans. They also all wore very specific tunics which was because of a philosophy he came up with about colours (which I can't seem to find much about at the moment so maybe a future post?). Purity in terms of sex was something he insisted on but it must have been a later addition because evidence has shown that Pythagoras himself did not die a virgin, obviously this is the quality content you read my blog for. Some other legends say that they could not stir a fire with a knife, they could not wear rings and they had to touch the ground every time there was thunder. I don't really know the reasoning behind this and I don't know if I really want to find out after some of the interesting things I've read online *insert confused and disgusted face here*

Alongside some of his weird philosophical beliefs, his cult was a very mathematical cult. In fact, the basis of his entire cult was because of numbers. He believed that the one thing that was in common with everything was numbers. Aside from the basic Pythagoras theorem I've learnt in school, I don't really know what other sorts of mathematical discoveries he made, not because of ignorance or a lack of interest but rather just because I've not had a chance to do so. What I do know is that he didn't treat all numbers the same, he thought that some numbers were considered more holy than others. For example, he gave a lot of importance to the number one. This is because it symbolises unity and the origin. Every other number is essentially made from the number one and therefore he thought it was something to pay a lot of attention to. I guess we could say that this was the start of numerology?

Now onto the interesting part, his death *ominous music*. After hearing some of his beliefs, I'm sure that you may agree that they're quite absurd. Many political thinkers also thought this. When there was a political movement of some sort in Italy (where he moved and started his cult after living in Greece), he was being chased by attackers. The attackers chased him to the edge of a hill or a cliff. He could have jumped off and survived as well as run away from his attackers but there was a major limiting factor. Underneath the hill/cliff/whatever it was, there were fields of fava beans. We all know his rule on not consuming fava beans but it actually was to the extent that you could not even touch them. Instead of saving himself, he got assassinated by his attackers. He has shown such dedication to his beliefs more than anyone I know which really says something, It's not everyday that someone's willing to die for beans.

I hope you guys enjoyed this post, I am currently fighting a really painful migraine which hasn't left me alone for about a week. I am also on the verge of falling asleep so I hope this actually makes sense. I hope you all have a good week ahead, love you guys <33