As an addition to the above “disclaimer”, I must warn you that much of my writings will be in conjunction with school. That means there’s a good chance I will begin many posts with, “As we talked about in class” or “In a book I was reading for class”. You’ve been warned.

So, as my professor was saying in class, the Trinity is one of the most challenging theologies to not only understand but also to explain. I would venture to guess that most all Christians accept the idea of the Trinity even if that is as far as their knowledge goes on the subject. But, do we know what we are even claiming?

The professor went on to explain that no one should even approach this topic without many years of theological and philosophical study. And while this is a participation in the conversation, it is much more an idea and not at all definitive. I’m just processing some of my thoughts in regards to some of my readings and placing them here. So, let us begin:

Plotinus is one of the most influential philosophers in history (significant voice in Neoplatonism which combines metaphysics with a contemplative vision of reality). The reach of what he accomplished is far beyond me and I do not wish to give a dissertation on his life or his achievements (which are many). My aim is to focus on the small excerpt I read out of his writing “Enneads” (treatise IV and V).

In this, Plotinus attempts to explain the eternal – the One. With many large claims, such as this larger Soul of the world, Plotinus comes to a well thought out and communicated idea. He claims that there is a source or One at the helm (by the way, I’m a novice student so my understanding does not equate to the proper understanding). However, this One does not move because the One’s movement would then be an entity or hypostasis all it’s own.

So, to Plotinus, the One is first and the second is Intellect. That is what comes from the One. Now, the “off-shoot” of something (like Intellect from the One), must be inferior. He continues by saying that the Soul is from Intellect meaning it is 3rd.

This brought me to the idea of the Trinity (and as I start to read Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins). Plotinus’ point about the One not moving or the very movement would become something is compelling. And perhaps if Plotinus was formulating his theory through the lens of Christianity he might claim that Intellect is a part of the Trinity (the One and Intellect that came from the One).

However, playing off his idea of movement, I’d posit that God does move. God’s movement, then, must be an entity. If that were so, there would be 2 aspects of God – God and God’s movement. Where would the 3rd part of the Trinity derive?

The Gospel of John opens by saying that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. As we read on we find that the Word is referring to Jesus. God’s word, like movement, became an entity. If we believe that God speaks then that presupposes movement because there can be no speech without movement.

The Trinity, attempting to fit it into this narrow view, can be seen through 1) God, 2) God’s movement in the world (the Holy Spirit) and 3) God’s Word (Jesus). All is One and all distinct.

Of course, there’s a good chance none of that is correct…

THE AUDIOS:

A God is My Co-Pilot: the Life and Works of Plotinus

Simplicity Itself: Plotinus on the One and Intellect

On the Horizon: Plotinus on Soul

A Decorated Corpse: Plotinus on Matter and Evil

THE ONE
The Absolute and Source
|           
emanation     contemplation
           |
N O U S
The “Divine Mind”;
Eternal and Transcendent.
|           
emanation     contemplation
           |
P S Y C H E
“Soul”; the dynamic, creative temporal
power, both cosmic (“World-Soul”) and
individual (e.g. human consciousness).

The world of the senses.

source: kheper.net

Here begins the struggle to drag a bunch of you pagans – you know who you are – into just the 20th Century. I will accept an assist from that equally “degenerate” time, the 3rd. About 1950 is as far as I can defend with a completely straight face, in no small part because Arshile Gorky died in 1948.

Misunderstanding the Modern is no mere choice of aesthetic styles. It scorns a Theurgy. Not degenerate but of the ungenerate, it is Idea’s first crop of frost crystals on the palms of Hekate Daimoniarkhes. So if modernism be as raw vegetables to you, eat your vegebles, and cultivate responses to art other than “Oooh!” and “Ahhh!”

- Arshile Gorky, “Nightime, Enigma, and Nostalgia,” 1931-2

“Soul, there without distinction and partition, has yet a nature lending itself to divisional existence: its division is secession, entry into body.

“In view of this seceding and the ensuing partition we may legitimately speak of it as a partible thing.

“But if so, how can it still be described as indivisible?
In that the secession is not of the soul entire; something of it holds its ground, that in it which recoils from separate existence.

“The entity, therefore, described as “consisting of the undivided soul and of the soul divided among bodies,” contains a soul which is at once above and below, attached to the Supreme and yet reaching down to this sphere, like a radius from a centre.

“Thus it is that, entering this realm, it possesses still the vision inherent to that superior phase in virtue of which it unchangingly maintains its integral nature. Even here it is not exclusively the partible soul: it is still the impartible as well: what in it knows partition is parted without partibility; undivided as giving itself to the entire body, a whole to a whole, it is divided as being effective in every part.”

 

 

from Enneads, IV.1

Arshile Gorky, “Painting,” 1936-7

“In our attempt to elucidate the Essence of the soul, we show it to be neither a material fabric nor, among immaterial things, a harmony. The theory that it is some final development, some entelechy, we pass by, holding this to be neither true as presented nor practically definitive.”

-Enneads, IV.2

Arshile Gorky, “X on Brown Paper.”

“There are, we hold, things primarily apt to partition, tending by sheer nature towards separate existence: they are things in which no part is identical either with another part or with the whole, while, also their part is necessarily less than the total and whole: these are magnitudes of the realm of sense, masses, each of which has a station of its own so that none can be identically present in entirety at more than one point at one time.”

-IV.2

“But to that order is opposed Essence [Real-Being]; this is in no degree susceptible of partition; it is unparted and impartible; interval is foreign to it, cannot enter into our idea of it: it has no need of place and is not, in diffusion or as an entirety, situated within any other being: it is poised over all beings at once, and this is not in the sense of using them as a base but in their being neither capable nor desirous of existing independently of it; it is an essence eternally unvaried: it is common to all that follows upon it: it is like the circle’s centre to which all the radii are attached while leaving it unbrokenly in possession of itself, the starting point of their course and of their essential being, the ground in which they all participate: thus the indivisible is the principle of these divided existences and in their very outgoing they remain enduringly in contact with that stationary essence.”

-IV.2

The featured image is me, scowling upon bourgeois sentimentalism wherever it hides, and also Arshile Gorky, “Man’s Head.”

“For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.  For this reason no man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language, especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is true of that which is set down in written characters.”

~ Plato

What exactly is it that “does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge” ?  I believe that Plotinus would answer that this “knowledge” of which Plato refers, is Truth, the Light that is received when one lives a life of philosophical morality, being entirely identified with his or her ‘highest principle’.  Make no mistake, this Truth is reached not by an exchange of knowledge, through dissertation or dialogue, but through experience.  Plotinus believed wholeheartedly in the transmission of spiritual energy between teacher and student, or shared experiences of transcendence.  Furthermore, Plotinus adamantly insisted that Plato’s modus operandi was always to maintain his connection to the ‘Divine Mind’ of the Universe.  To do otherwise, according to Plotinus, would be to limit the ‘Self’ to the ‘lower principle’ that constitutes the normal nature of man and thus a ‘Discursive-Reasoning’ is engaged; it knows, not in the instantaneous, unmeditated, entirely adequate True-Knowing of the ‘First Soul’ [Plotinus describes Life as having three soul-variations, and this will be discussed in greater detail, later]  but step-by-step, arriving by the way of doubt and of logic at a knowing which is even at best imperfect: in its lower action we have ‘Opinion’ formed though surface-knowledge.

This brings us face-to-face with the gates of heaven.  Luckily, heaven is not guarded by gates.  Yet, human beings will place gates between themselves and heaven only because this information is not known and, more importantly, not experienced by the vast majority of human beings on this planet, today.  Let’s consider something that Eckhart Tolle once said, “The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp. When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought; you can then see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.”  And there you have it.  Understanding these few words will invoke a transcendental experience that will last forever. You will know God, feel God and you can choose to either be ‘Self’ or ‘God’ because it’s the same thing.  Being of no form, to the mind both of these things are nothing.  What Jesus really had once said was that in order to be with ‘the Father’, it meant dying; but, what was dying did not exist (outside of the mind) and thus what remained was what we all truly are:  coming to know thyself is knowing God.

Writing beyond this point probably just complicates matters; however, the human brain loves patterns and so perhaps it is prudent to indulge ourselves in details so that the mind can play a little game of “Connecting the Dots.”  See if your mind can cease thinking about other things and be unthinkingly attentive in the now.  Plotinus (and perhaps Plato) would offer that adoption of one’s ‘Higher-Intellect’ did not entail advanced thinking and coming to intellectual conclusions.  It was, and is, the practice of communion and listening.  Maybe it’s not intelligent to make decisions by yourself, but instead, in silent council with the infinite.  Surrender to it.  Don’t keep assuming that it is your choice to decide what to do next (who is making the decisions?). Experience this flow and trust in Being and thy will, will be done. Another quotation by Eckhart Tolle:

“When you do use your mind, and particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.

Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it and know that the primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

Yes.  But this can be difficult to put into practice when we derive a sense of “Self” from that which controls us, the Ego.  If you consider “God” to be “The One” (encompassing thinker and object of thought), or “Goodness and Unity” or “The Whole of Existence”, or “Light”; then “Ego” is the “Darkness”, “Disparity and Multiplicity” or “Evil”.  But where can lines be drawn between Ego, Mind, and brain chemistry to explain our actions?  It is enlightened to simply say that these are the things that nightmares are made of.  They are “Of Form”; hence, they are only devices which have evolved, biologically, along side the “Form” of our bodies.  Alas, we are far greater than the sum of our parts (thank God).  Let it be known that there is a preciousness and beauty in the essence of your Being that is not limited to form.

Of “The One” it could be said that God is the space or realm that is everything below thought and that it is thought alone that creates the separation keeping the thinker out of the experience of perfected existence, the true state of all beings.  To some degree, words (as if casting a dark spell upon us; this, the “Dark Con of Man”) have broken our connection to the divine and ultimately to ourselves.  It seems necessary to search for good words that can have the affect of causing true spiritual healing and enlightenment and repair the damage that has been done.  Enter Plotinus (pronounced, “Ploe-tie-ness”).

Plotinus (ca. 204/5–270 CE) was a major philosopher of the ancient world.  His metaphysical writings have inspired centuries of Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics. Plotinus had an inherent distrust of materiality (an attitude common to Platonism), holding to the view that phenomena were a poor image or mimicry (mimesis) of something “higher and intelligible” which was the “truer part of genuine Being.”  This distrust extended to the body, including his own; it is reported that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably for much the same reasons of dislike. Likewise Plotinus never discussed his ancestry, childhood, or his place or date of birth. From all accounts his personal and social life exhibited the highest moral and spiritual standards.  Plotinus took up the study of philosophy at the age of twenty-seven, around the year 232, and travelled to Alexandria to study. There he was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of Ammonius Saccas. Upon hearing Ammonius’ lecture, he declared to his friend, “this was the man I was looking for,” and began to study intently under his new instructor. Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the works of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Numenius, and various Stoics.  Plotinus wrote the essays that became the Enneads over a period of several years from ca. 253 until a few months before his death.  Plotinus’ final words were: “Strive to give back the Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the All.”

Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent “One”, containing no division, multiplicity or distinction; beyond all categories of Being and non-Being.  His One “cannot be any existing thing”, nor is it merely the sum of all things but “is prior to all existents.” His One concept encompasses thinker and object of thought.

The One is not just an intellectual conception but something that can be experienced, an experience where one goes beyond all multiplicity. Plotinus writes,

“We ought not even to say that he will see, but he will be that which he sees, if indeed it is possible any longer to distinguish between seer and seen, and not boldly to affirm that the two are one.”

Emanation by the One:  Plotinus offers an alternative to the orthodox Christian notion of creation ‘ex nihilo’ (out of nothing), which attributes to God the deliberation of mind and action of a will.  Emanation ‘ex deo’ (out of God) on the other hand, confirms the absolute transcendence of the One, making the unfolding of the cosmos purely a ‘consequence’ of its existence; the One is in no way affected or diminished by these emanations. Plotinus uses the analogy of the Sun which emanates light indiscriminately without thereby diminishing itself, or reflection in a mirror which in no way diminishes or otherwise alters the object being reflected.

The first emanation is Nous (Divine Mind, logos or order, Thought, Reason).  It is the first Will toward Good. From Nous proceeds the World Soul, which Plotinus subdivides into upper and lower, identifying the lower aspect of Soul with nature. From the world soul proceeds individual human souls, and finally, matter, at the lowest level of Being and thus the least perfected level of the cosmos. Despite this relatively pedestrian assessment of the material world, Plotinus asserted the ultimately divine nature of material creation since it ultimately derives from the One, through the mediums of nous and the world soul. It is by the Good or through beauty that we recognize the One, in material things and then in the Forms.

The essentially devotional nature of Plotinus’ philosophy may be further illustrated by his concept of attaining ecstatic union with the One, a process called ‘Henosis.’ Each individual as a microcosm reflects the gradual ordering of the universe referred to as the macrocosm. In mimicking the demiurge (divine mind), one unites with The One (or Monad). Thus the process of unification, of “The Being”, and “The One”, is called Henosis. Plotinus claimed to have attained such a union four times throughout his own life. This may be related to enlightenment, liberation, and other concepts of mystical union common to many Eastern and Western traditions.

The True Human and Happiness:  Authentic human happiness for Plotinus consists of the true human identifying with that which is the best in the universe. Because happiness is beyond anything physical, Plotinus stresses the point that worldly fortune does not control true human happiness, and thus “… there exists no single human being that does not either potentially or effectively possess this thing we hold to constitute happiness.”  (Enneads I.4.4) The issue of happiness is one of Plotinus’ greatest imprints on Western thought, as he is one of the first to introduce the idea that eudaimonia (happiness) is attainable only within consciousness.

The true human is an incorporeal contemplative capacity of the soul, and superior to all things corporeal. It then follows that real human happiness is independent of the physical world. Real happiness is, instead, dependent on the metaphysical and authentic human being found in this highest capacity of Reason. “For man, and especially the Proficient, is not the Couplement of Soul and body: the proof is that man can be disengaged from the body and disdain its nominal goods.” (Enneads I.4.14) The human who has achieved happiness will not be bothered by sickness, discomfort, etc., as his focus is on the greatest things. Authentic human happiness is the utilization of the most authentically human capacity of contemplation. Even in daily, physical action, the flourishing human’s “…Act is determined by the higher phase of the Soul.” (Enneads III.4.6) Even in the most dramatic arguments Plotinus considers (if the Proficient is subject to extreme physical torture, for example), he concludes this only strengthens his claim of true happiness being metaphysical, as the truly happy human being would understand that which is being tortured is merely a body, not the conscious self, and happiness could persist.

Plotinus offers a comprehensive description of his conception of a person who has achieved eudaimonia. “The perfect life” involves a man who commands reason and contemplation. (Enneads I.4.4) A happy person will not sway between happy and sad, as many of Plotinus’ contemporaries believed. Stoics, for example, question the ability of someone to be happy (presupposing happiness is contemplation) if they are mentally incapacitated or even asleep. Plotinus disregards this claim, as the soul and true human do not sleep or even exist in time, nor will a living human who has achieved eudaimonia suddenly stop using its greatest, most authentic capacity just because of the body’s discomfort in the physical realm. “…The Proficient’s Will is set always and only inward.” (Enneads I.4.11)

Overall, happiness for Plotinus is “…a flight from this world’s ways and things and a focus on the highest.”

The teachings of Plotinus are energetic structures to be inhabited and wholly transformed by.  Dogmatic form in literature stultifies both mind and soul, but ideation awakens them.  There is recognition that inhabiting ideas — different ideas and ideas in sequence — changes consciousness in the way that meditation changes consciousness. This is the true meaning of contemplation; rather than silence the mind, contemplation seeks to cultivate and inhabit different states of mind, thereby altering consciousness itself.  This ancient and sacred idea is a womb to consciousness, not a cage — one passes from it into a brighter light and greater freedom.  When we encounter the divine nature of an idea, we assimilate it to consciousness and pass it on; its essence becomes part of us, but it does not rule over us. Rather, we animate it and lend it soul.  This understanding naturally leads to a life imbued with Spirit and deep presence, and one in which Consciousness itself is the ever-present Teacher.

“Ever since my allegiance shifted from ‘thinking’ and ‘other teachers’ towards trusting in this intuitive sense of natural presence, that simple and always already present awareness has become more and more obvious.”

~ Bertinho Massaro

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ダイレクト マーケティング システムDOMSなど オペラ独自のソリューションにより顧客シェアを最大限に拡大いたします

The Hen is all things
but not a single one [oudè hén];
for the arche of all things is not all things,
but in that particular way it is all things, that is to say thither
they run.
Rather, they do not yet exist,
but they will be.

How then does [it all] come out
of a Simple One which has in itself
no intricate appearance,
nor any kind of folds whatsoever?

It is because there is no-thing [oudèn] in itself
that through this out of itself come
all things,
that Being [tò òn] may be;

through this
he himself is not existing [ouk ón],
he, the progenitor of itself. But as such
this is the prime engendering.
Being complete,
to not seek, to not hold, to not need,
in some kind of overflowing,
and overplenteousness of itself
it has made [pepoíêken] another.

So the becoming to itself
is turned and filled,
born toward itself gazing, &
this is the Nous.
& the-standing-towards-that,
the Being of itself she made, as her view
towards itself is Nous.

As it stood towards itself, that it may see,
out of the same nous it becomes and Is.
This one
now being such as that one,
The likeness [tà hómoia] creates the potency [dúnamin],
pouring out the many
- and this image is of itself -
just as before

the prime of itself poured out.
& out of the substance [tês ousías] this energeia
Is the Soul, the becoming of that abiding
& so the Nous-of-the-abiding-before-itself
has become.
Yet not abiding she creates, but
Motioned she is born
a phantom [eídôlon].

However looking there, whence born,
she becomes full,
Advanced into another motion her contrary she engenders ,
a phantom of herself, sensation [aísthêsin],
the nature [phúsin] within natural things [en toîs phutoîs].

& not one thing before itself has been hung up, or cut off.
For this reason
it appears that the upper Soul comes
all the way into natural things.
For in any way she comes,
as if something of herself is in natural
things.

But surely not all of her is in natural things,
but her coming
into being [gignoménê] in natural things
is in this way,
as far & so much as she advanced downward,
into the sub-stasis [hupóstasis]
her other
creating in her going out

and her eagerness [prothumía] for
what’s worse.
Then that before this,
that coming right out of the Nous,
Allows the Nous to abide in itself.

[the Greek text, édition Kirchhoff]

Why Plotinus?

Some recent posts on panpsychism, Spinoza and the such had me returning to the Ur-panpsychist, as least as I read the history of the thought. It was Plotinus who helped structure the very influential, non-dualistic, Neo-Platonist Christian theology of Augustine, to some degree safeguarding from heresy the conception of an ontology of degrees of Being throughout the Medieval ages and the Renaissance. But Plotinus is dramatically under-read, especially in view of his pivotal, and quite influential position within the history of philosophy. Part of this problem has I believe been due to the translation of his work, his writings/lectures compiled and edited by his student Porphry, The Six Enneads. This is not to say that the translations are poor (there are several recent translations out after a historical dearth), but rather that for me they often still grasp at something in the text emphasizing the wrong, or at least importune, threads. They can either verbosely, or somewhat sterilely isolate the “concept” in the writing, and ignore the texture of it, the dexterity and one might say, the luminosity.

For those interested in the history of panpsychism the above is a translation of the quite important to many of the thinkers that follow. One may recognized immediately aspects of Hegel (reflexivity to the One), Spinoza (radiating degrees of causal dependence upon the One), and even Deleuze (that things that will be “runs through” the One) and Badiou (how Being is created via the Nous) in the framing of the emanation of Being from the Hen. I hope to discuss some of these in future posts, as they are quite intriguing. I present this passage precisely because, although the Enneads is quite long (more than a 1,000 pages in some editions), it may all really come down to this passage (and a few others). If one grasps this, one grasps a whole historical thread of though stretching nearly 2000 years to the present, a thread that has repeatedly dipped beneath the fabric which is has sewn, only to appear again.

Also, this short passage allows one to deal with metaphysics straight on, in a condensed, small space, to try to take it whole and see what one can draw from it. One asks often, what good is metaphysics? Perhaps with this short passage (and another I hope to post), we can see what is being proposed, and even look to what it means for our very lives, the way that we look at and solve problems.

Notes on the Translation

Obviously, I put it into verse. The purpose of this is several fold. The first that the Greek itself if quite condensed, as the language tends to be, but also as the philosopher can push it; and poetry actually is probably the best formal approximation of this condensation of meaning and effect. The verse form forces a reader to pause and consider the kerneling of phrases, just as the Greek would require. In this sense, the line breaks hopefully serve to translate the relationship between the ideas present such that mere prose could not. In this vein I also tried to steer clear of excessive explication within the text itself. Translators of philosophy in Greek often “fill in” the meaning that they think is implied by word-use and word-choice, in effect erasing the fullness of what is being invoked. (With Plato this is disastrous.) Where the implications are open I tried to leave them as open as possible so that one could continue to think along with the writer.

As to the text itself there are several basic decisions I made:

To Hen: This is Plotinus’ crowning concept, and is universally translated as The One. Quite accurately of course. But because “hen” is also the aorist (past) participle of the verb “hiemi” which means anything from  ”to set in motion,” “to hurl,” “to let flow, burst” even in context “to speak”, the Hen is The One, but also The-Having-Set-In-Motion. To restrict its conception merely to the former is to dramatically cleave its meaning. Even this simple translation difficulty I think has lead to a misreading of the very core conception of Plotinus’ view. So when thinking about the Hen, think of both a Oneness, but also a flowing out, an activity.

arche: Is both the principle and the origin. It is something like a foundation, but is more active.

(phuton) phutois: I translate this “natural things” instead of “plants” as many rightful translators do (as in the section that follows he makes the distinction between phuton and the animal without logos, the latter having the power of sense-perception. This is because I believe that Plotinus is not thinking of this plant or that, but rather of the entire profusion of “growth” that is shown in both plants and animals, the raw aspect of what we regularly call and imply by ”Nature” per se. This is an important translation point for the general argument of panpsychism that I believe that Plotinus holds.

Nous: Of course this is “mind” often translated as “intellect”.

autos, etc.: Plotinus uses the reflexive to great degree here, and in more than one gender. I direct the meaning toward this itself, himself, herself, though it can also mean “the same” with obvious philosophical precedent.

There are several other points of translation where I differ from the main line, so perhaps as always, check with other translations to get the full spectrum of possible readings. For instance, I take care to maintain the shifts in gender accomplished here, where Plotinus moves from neuter Hen, to a masculine progenitor to a female engendering and a female soul, always looking back upon the neuter, itself.

The translation is not meant as anything to be taken as authoritative, but rather an experiment in form so as to largely provide a gateway for those interested in Plotinus who have not read him directly, and perhaps an occasion for thought, for those who have studied him more closely.