Reading Notes: Plotinus 1:1:8

Welcome back!

Last time, Plotinus began to wrap up his view on the nature of the Soul and its relation to the body, telling us that the Soul acts like a kind of light, shining into the body, like a lantern lighting up a wall. What is he going to tell us this time? Let's dive in and find out!

As always, if you want to follow along, you can do so here.

And towards the Intellectual-Principle what is our relation? By this I mean, not that faculty in the soul which is one of the emanations from the Intellectual-Principle, but The Intellectual-Principle itself [Divine Mind].

As I understand it, Intellect in Platonic philosophy is the realm of the Forms, those eternal Things that allow changeable things here in the world to have qualities. The example I keep using, of course, is red, which is a form under the larger heading Color, in which it participates along with green, blue, and so on; and which itself is under the still larger heading Quality, along with shape, texture, etc.

Here, Plotinus isn't talking about our capacity to perceive forms, which is something we receive, but the "The Intellectual Principle itself." In other words, Intellect as it exists before individuals have intelects. Or, to say it another way, the Mind of God.

This we also possess as the summit of our being. And we have it either as common to all or as our own immediate possession: or again we may possess It in both degrees, that is in common, since It is indivisible--one, everywhere and always Its entire self-- and severally in that each personality possesses It entire in the First-Soul [i.e. in the Intellectual as distinct from the lower phase of the Soul.]

The Intellectual Principle is a unity; it can't be divided. And yet each of us, in the highest part of our individual soul, experiences it individually.

Hence we possess the Ideal-Forms also after two modes: in the Soul, as it were unrolled and separate; in the Intellectual-Princi[ple, concentrated, one.

And so we can say the same thing about the Forms. At their highest, they can't be divided, and so we each possess them just as they are-- and yet we do so individually, "unrolled and separate" in our individual consciousness. 




And how do we possess the Divinity?

Here we have to add a caveat. What does our translator mean by "the Divinity?" In the absence of notes, we don't know. In the Platonic tradition we have an idea of the Highest God, who precedes the individual Gods. Is that what Plotinus means, or is he talking about how we commune with specific deities, or is he talking about how we are able to interact with divinity (God, Gods) in general? 

(Note to self: Find time to learn ancient Greek.)

Let's see what he says, and see if we can make sense of it.

In that the Divinity is contained in the Intellectual-Principle and Authentic-Existence; and We come third in order after these two, for the We is constituted by a union of the supreme, the undivided Soul-- we read-- and that Soul which is divided among [living] bodies. For, note, we inevitably think of  the Soul, though one and undivided in teh All, as being present to bodies in division: in so far as any bodies are Animates, the Soul has given itself to each of the separate material masses; or rather it appears to be present in the bodies by the fact that it shines into them: it makes them living beings not by merging into body but by giving forth, without any change in itself, images or likenesses of itself like one fact caught by many mirrors.

Let's work through this backwards. Plotinus concludes this bit with my favorite image so far. The Soul is present to the body like one image reflected through a series of mirrors. Each of these images, we'll soon discover, gets further and further from the eternal principle of Soul-- but let's set that aside for now. We are constituted by a union of the eternal Soul and that Soul which is divided among bodies. The Divinity, meanwhile, is contained in "the Intellectual-Principle and Authentic-Existence." This is the second time we've encountered this term "Authentic-Existence"; our delightful translator just throws it in there, capital letters and hyphenations, assuming we'll know what he means. Fortunately, we know that our order of existence goes: The One, The Intellect, Soul. "Divinity" is contained in "the Intellectual-Principle" and "Authentic-Existence"; the latter therefore means either the One itself, or else is a term for the life of the Soul as an eternal Form. It doesn't really matter which: In either case, Plotinus is saying that since we participate in Intellect and Soul, it is in this way that we have access to the Divine.

Now he's going to have something very interesting to say about all those images, caught in those mirrors:

The first of these images is Sense-Perception seated in the Couplement; and from this downwards all the successive images are to be recognized as phases of the Soul in lessening succession from one another, until the series ends in the faculties of generation and growth and of all production of offspring-- offspring efficient in its turn, in contradistinction to the engendering Soul which [has no direct action within matter but] produces by mere inclination towards what it fashions.

Reading this, were you reminded of the Tree of Life? This is the diagram made famous by Jewish Cabalists, but which probably originates with Gnostics contemporary with Plotinus himself. The Tree is a model both of the universe and the individual. In it, life begins in an absolute Monad (Kether) and proceeds through 9 permutations, making its way through Mind, Emotion, Sense-Perception, and finally the urge toward reproduction (Yesod), and then gives rise to material reality (Malkuth). 

It's worth noting that, in the Cabala, matter is only the last, most tenuous expression of spirit; for Plotinus, on the other hand, the Soul "has no direct action within matter."