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Adding Notes to Plotinus
As I'm reading Plotinus, I will add, paragraph by paragraph, a reworded, more readable version of what he says, as his ideas are very clear, but the original translation seems unnecessarily cumbersome.
4. Let us consider, then, the hypothesis of a coalescence.
Now if there is a coalescence, the lower is ennobled, the nobler degraded; the body is raised in the scale of being as made participant in life; the Soul, as associated with death and unreason, is brought lower. How can a lessening of the life-quality produce an increase such as Sense-Perception?
Reworded by the Agora:
"If such a merging happens, the lower thing (body) is elevated, while the higher thing (Soul) is lowered. The body gains value by sharing in life, but the Soul loses dignity by being tied to death and irrationality. How could reducing the Soul’s purity result in something greater, like the ability to sense things?"
No: the body has acquired life, it is the body that will acquire, with life, sensation and the affections coming by sensation. Desire, then, will belong to the body, as the objects of desire are to be enjoyed by the body. And fear, too, will belong to the body alone; for it is the body's doom to fail of its joys and to perish.
Reworded by the Agora:
"No: the body gains life, and with life, it gains senses and the feelings that come from sensing. Therefore, desire belongs to the body, since what is desired is experienced by the body. Fear also belongs only to the body, because the body is the one that loses pleasures and faces destruction."
Then again we should have to examine how such a coalescence could be conceived: we might find it impossible: perhaps all this is like announcing the coalescence of things utterly incongruous in kind, let us say of a line and whiteness.
Reworded by the Agora:
"Next, we should ask how such a merging could even happen—it might be impossible. It could be like trying to combine two completely different things, like a line and the color white."
Next for the suggestion that the Soul is interwoven through the body: such a relation would not give woof and warp community of sensation: the interwoven element might very well suffer no change: the permeating soul might remain entirely untouched by what affects the body- as light goes always free of all it floods- and all the more so, since, precisely, we are asked to consider it as diffused throughout the entire frame.
Reworded by the Agora:
"Now, take the idea that the Soul is woven into the body: this wouldn’t automatically mean they share sensations. The Soul, even if interwoven, might stay unchanged by the body’s experiences, just as light remains unaffected by whatever it shines upon. This is especially true if we imagine the Soul spread evenly throughout the whole body."
Under such an interweaving, then, the Soul would not be subjected to the body's affections and experiences: it would be present rather as Ideal-Form in Matter.
Let us then suppose Soul to be in body as Ideal-Form in Matter. Now if- the first possibility- the Soul is an essence, a self-existent, it can be present only as separable form and will therefore all the more decidedly be the Using-Principle [and therefore unaffected].
Reworded by the Agora:
"Let’s imagine the Soul in the body like a perfect form within matter. If the Soul is truly independent and self-existing, it can only be present as a separate, unchanging principle, meaning it wouldn’t be affected by the body."
Suppose, next, the Soul to be present like axe-form on iron: here, no doubt, the form is all important but it is still the axe, the complement of iron and form, that effects whatever is effected by the iron thus modified: on this analogy, therefore, we are even more strictly compelled to assign all the experiences of the combination to the body: their natural seat is the material member, the instrument, the potential recipient of life.
Reworded by the Agora:
"Now, think of the Soul like the shape of an axe imposed on iron. While the shape matters, it’s the whole axe (iron + shape) that does the cutting. Similarly, all experiences must belong to the body: the physical part that actually receives life and acts."
Compare the passage where we read* that "it is absurd to suppose that the Soul weaves"; equally absurd to think of it as desiring, grieving. All this is rather in the province of something which we may call the Animate.
Reworded by the Agora:
"As Plato says, it’s ridiculous to say the Soul ‘weaves’; just as it’s absurd to say it desires or grieves. These things belong to what we might call the ‘living being’ (the body-soul combination), not the Soul itself."
* "We read" translates "he says" of the text, and always indicates a reference to Plato, whose name does not appear in the translation except where it was written by Plotinus. S.M.
So they do admit that "Elohim" is plural for gods not one God
YHWH is just one of that Elohim, not God with a capital G. I thought they would deny it, but apparently they don't.
Manly Hall About the Tetragrammaton
Interestingly, he calls YHWH the Demiurge of the Jews.
This is quite ambiguous in terms of what role he actually prescribes to him. Creator of the physical universe from the perspective of the Jews? Or something lesser as in creator of a specific part of the universe associated with the the Jews?
I haven't read the book, yet. Just came across this during editing.
Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky
Our library now features the multidisciplinary work Tertium Organum by P.D. Ouspensky, blending logic, esotericism and mysticism and arguing the idea that human consciousness can perceive a "third order" beyond dualistic thinking.
Therefore, our consciousness segregates separate groups out of the chaos of impressions, and we build, in space and time, representations of objects which correspond to these groups of impressions.
We have got to divide things somehow, and we divide them according to categories of space and time.
But we must remember that these divisions exist only in us, in our perception of things, and not in the things themselves. We must not forget that we neither know the true interrelation of things nor do we know real things. All we know is their phantoms, their shadows, and we do not know what relationship actually exists between them. At the same time we know quite definitely that our division of things according to time and space in no way corresponds to the division of things in themselves taken independently of our perception of them;
The Agora now houses the spirit of Éliphas Lévi
Our library now contains The Paradoxes of the Highest Science by Éliphas Lévi.
May you use it to lift your ignorance and perhaps even share your insights with the rest of us.
"FATHER, forgive them, for they know not what they do," said Christ, in praying for his executioners.
Thus speaking, he was pleading the cause of all Humanity. All men deceive themselves because "they know not," and no man knows what he does when he does evil. How could a rational being with a perfect discernment do evil? 1 Does any one voluntarily take poisons for perfumes, gall for honey, hemlock for parsley, or arsenic for salt?
Ignorance is the cause of all errors, of all crimes and of all the evils that torment the Human Race.
The Agora now has a library
We now have a library that so far consists of a total of one book. Check out how it works and leave a comment, what kind of books (public domain) you would like see next.
If you highlight a passage of text in the library, while being logged in, you will be prompted to make a post about that passage and share your thoughts.
1. The Principle of Mentalism
"THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental."--The Kybalion.
This Principle embodies the truth that "All is Mind." It explains that THE ALL (which is the Substantial Reality underlying all the outward manifestations and appearances which we know under the terms of "The Material Universe"; the "Phenomena of Life"; "Matter"; "Energy"; and, in short, all that is apparent to our material senses) is SPIRIT which in itself is UNKNOWABLE and UNDEFINABLE, but which may be considered and thought of as AN UNIVERSAL, INFINITE, LIVING MIND.