Passages similar to: The Six Enneads — The Impassivity of the Unembodied
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Neoplatonic
The Six Enneads
The Impassivity of the Unembodied (5)
But why have we to call in Philosophy to make the Soul immune if it is thus immune from the beginning? Because representations attack it at what we call the affective phase and cause a resulting experience, a disturbance, to which disturbance is joined the image of threatened evil: this amounts to an affection and Reason seeks to extinguish it, to ban it as destructive to the well-being of the Soul which by the mere absence of such a condition is immune, the one possible cause of affection not being present. Take it that some such affections have engendered appearances presented before the Soul or Mind from without but taken to be actual experiences within it- then Philosophy's task is like that of a man who wishes to throw off the shapes presented in dreams, and to this end recalls to waking condition the mind that is breeding them. But what can be meant by the purification of a Soul that has never been stained and by the separation of the Soul from a body to which it is essentially a stranger? The purification of the Soul is simply to allow it to be alone; it is pure when it keeps no company; when it looks to nothing without itself; when it entertains no alien thoughts- be the mode or origin of such notions or affections what they may, a subject on which we have already touched- when it no longer sees in the world of image, much less elaborates images into veritable affections. Is it not a true purification to turn away towards the exact contrary of earthly things? Separation, in the same way, is the condition of a soul no longer entering into the body to lie at its mercy; it is to stand as a light, set in the midst of trouble but unperturbed through all. In the particular case of the affective phase of the Soul, purification is its awakening from the baseless visions which beset it, the refusal to see them; its separation consists in limiting its descent towards the lower and accepting no picture thence, and of course in the banning for its part too of all which the higher Soul ignores when it has arisen from the trouble storm and is no longer bound to the flesh by the chains of sensuality and of multiplicity but has subdued to itself the body and its entire surrounding so that it holds sovereignty, tranquilly, over all.
O'er whatsoever souls the Mind doth, then, preside, to these it showeth its own light, by acting counter to their prepossessions, just as a good...
(3) O'er whatsoever souls the Mind doth, then, preside, to these it showeth its own light, by acting counter to their prepossessions, just as a good physician doth upon the body prepossessed by sickness, pain inflict, burning or lancing it for sake of health. In just the selfsame way the Mind inflicteth pain on the soul, to rescue it from pleasure, whence comes its every ill. The great ill of the soul is godlessness; then followeth fancy for all evil things and nothing good. So, then, Mind counteracting it doth work good on the soul, as the physician health upon the body.
The soul in man, however - not every soul, but one that pious is - is a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul when from the body freed, if...
(19) The soul in man, however - not every soul, but one that pious is - is a daimonic something and divine. And such a soul when from the body freed, if it have fought the fight of piety - the fight of piety is to know God and to do wrong to no man - such a soul becomes entirely mind. Whereas the impious soul remains in its own essence, chastised by its own self, and seeking for an earthly body where to enter, if only it be human. For that no other body can contain a human soul; nor is it right that any human soul should fall into the body of a thing that doth possess no reason. For that the law of God is this: to guard the human soul from such tremendous outrage.
Chapter 13: Of the Creating of Woman out of Adam. The fleshly, miserable, and dark Gate. (30)
And now if we will speak of the Soul, and of its Substance and Essences, we must say that it is the roughest [Thing] in Man; for it is the Originality...
(30) And now if we will speak of the Soul, and of its Substance and Essences, we must say that it is the roughest [Thing] in Man; for it is the Originality of the other Substances [or Things.] It is fiery, harsh, bitter, and strong, and it resembles a great [and] mighty Power, its Essences are like Brimstone: Its Gate or Seat out of the eternal Originality is between the fourth and the fifth Form in the eternal Birth, and in the unbeginning Band, of the strong Might of God the Father, where the eternal Light of his Heart (which makes the second Principle) generates itself, and if it wholly loses the bestowed Virgin of the divine Virtue [or Power] (out of which the Light of God generates itself, which is given to the Soul to be its Pearl, as is mentioned above) then it becomes, and is a Devil, like all other [Devils] in Essences, Form, and in Quality also.
ANSWER: This is why we say, “by the soul as a creature.” We mean it is impossible to the creature in virtue of its creature-nature and qualities, that by whic...
(1) I say, when as much as may be, it is known, felt and tasted of the soul. For the lack lieth altogether in us, and not in it. In like manner the sun lighteth the whole world, and is as near to one as another, yet a blind man seeth it not; but the fault thereof lieth in the blind man, not in the sun. And like as the sun may not hide its brightness, but must give light unto the earth (for heaven indeed draweth its light and heat from another fountain), so also God, who is the highest Good, willeth not to hide Himself from any, wheresoever He findeth a devout soul, that is thoroughly purified from all creatures. For in what measure we put off the creature, in the same measure are we able to put on the Creator; neither more nor less. For if mine eye is to see anything, it must be single, or else be purified from all other things; and where heat and light enter in, cold and darkness must needs depart; it cannot be otherwise. But one might say, “Now since the Perfect cannot be known nor apprehended of any creature, but the soul is a creature, how can it be known by the soul?” Answer: This is why we say, “by the soul as a creature.” We mean it is impossible to the creature in virtue of its creature-nature and qualities, that by which it saith “I” and “myself.” For in whatsoever creature the Perfect shall be known, therein creature-nature, qualities, the I, the Self and the like, must all be lost and done away.
The philosophers whom we have mentioned, from whom the Marcionites blasphemously derived their doctrine that birth is evil, on which they then plumed ...
(13) But we shall give a detailed answer to these people when we discuss the doctrine of First Principles. The philosophers whom we have mentioned, from whom the Marcionites blasphemously derived their doctrine that birth is evil, on which they then plumed themselves as if it were their own idea, do not hold that it is evil by nature, but only for the soul which has perceived the truth. For they think the soul is divine and has come down here to this world as a place of punishment. In their view souls which have become embodied need to be purified. But this doctrine is not that of the Marcionites, but of those who believe that the souls are enclosed in bodies and change from this prison and undergo transmigration. There will be an opportunity to reply to these when we come to speak about the soul.
I have. Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. True. And also of the mental ones; his soul is to ...
(375) how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable? I have. Then now we have a clear notion of the bodily qualities which are required in the guardian. True. And also of the mental ones; his soul is to be full of spirit? Yes. But are not these spirited natures apt to be savage with one another, and with everybody else? A difficulty by no means easy to overcome, he replied. Whereas, I said, they ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them. True, he said. What is to be done then? I said; how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other? True. He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible. I am afraid that what you say is true, he replied. Here feeling perplexed I began to think over what had preceded.—My friend, I said, no wonder that we are in a perplexity; for we have lost sight of the image which we had before us. What do you mean? he said. I mean to say that there do exist natures gifted with those opposite qualities. And where do you find them? Many animals, I replied, furnish examples of them; our
O nobly-born, when such thought-forms emanate, be thou not afraid, nor terrified; the body which now thou possessest being a mental-body of [karmic]...
(18) O nobly-born, when such thought-forms emanate, be thou not afraid, nor terrified; the body which now thou possessest being a mental-body of [karmic] propensities, though slain and chopped [to bits], cannot die. Because thy body is, in reality, one of voidness, thou needest not fear. The [bodies of the] Lord of Death, too, are emanations from the radiances of thine own intellect; they are not constituted of matter; voidness cannot injure voidness. Beyond the emanations of thine own intellectual faculties, externally, the Peaceful and the Wrathful Ones, the Blood-Drinking Ones, the Various-Headed Ones, the rainbow lights, the terrifying forms of the lord of Death, exist not in reality: of this, there is no doubt. Thus, knowing this, all the fear and terror is self-dissipated; and, merging in the state of at-one- ment, Buddhahood is obtained.
It is one of the most promising doctrines of certain schools of occult philosophy that the power of expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them...
(13) It is one of the most promising doctrines of certain schools of occult philosophy that the power of expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them dead on the spot, must be attained. Naturally the art requires practice, but like other arts, when once acquired there is no mystery or difficulty about it. And it is worth practice. It may indeed fairly be said that life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when, instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct and dispatch and employ where we list, life becomes a thing so vast and grand compared with what it was before, that its former condition may well appear almost antenatal. If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which is nine-tenths at least of the torments of life), but it gives to him a concentrated power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him before. The two things are correlative to each other.
Chapter 15: Of the a Knowledge of the Eternity in the Corruptibility of the Essence of all Essences. (58)
Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Feeling; for the fierce Sharpness of the Tincture of the first Principle, proves in its own Essences [in or] o...
(58) Therefore are the Essences of the Spirit of the Soul so very sharp and fiery, and [therefore] the Essences go forth out of such a sharp fiery Tincture, wherein now stand the five Senses, viz. Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Feeling; for the fierce Sharpness of the Tincture of the first Principle, proves in its own Essences [in or] of the Soul, or [in the Essences] of the Worm of the Soul, in this Place rightly so called, [it proves] the Stars, and Elements, viz. the Out-birth out of the first Principle, and whatsoever unites [or yields] itself to it, it takes that into the Essences of the Worm of the Soul; viz. all whatsoever is harsh [or sour,] bitter, stern, [or fierce,] and fiery, all whatsoever generates itself in the Fierceness, and all whatsoever is of the same Property with the Essences; all that which rises up along there in the fiery Source, and elevates itself in the Breaking of the Gate of the Darkness, and boils, [springs, or flows up] above the Meekness; and all whatsoever is like the sharp austere Eternity, and qualifies [or mixes] with the Sharpness of the fierce Anger of the God of the Eternity, wherein he holds the Kingdom of the Devils captive. O Man! consider thyself here, it is the sure Ground, known by the Author, in the Light of Nature, in the Will of God.
What does such a soul want with the generation which is in pleasure, or the restitution which is in it to a natural condition, since such a soul is ab...
(2) For consider, if you are willing, the last of divine natures, viz. a soul purely liberated from bodies. What does such a soul want with the generation which is in pleasure, or the restitution which is in it to a natural condition, since such a soul is above nature, and lives an unbegotten life? Why, also, should it participate of the pain which leads to corruption and dissolves the harmony of the body, since it is beyond all body, and the nature which is divided about body, and is entirely separate from the harmony which descends from the soul into the body? But neither is it in want of the passions which precede sensation: for neither is it detained in body, nor inclosed by it, so as to require corporeal organs, in order to apprehend certain other bodies which are external to these organs. And, in short, being impartible, and abiding in one and the same form, and also being essentially incorporeal, and having no communication with a generated and passive body, it cannot suffer any thing either according to division, or according to a change in quality, nor can have any thing which is allied to any kind of mutation or passion.
For where is Soul, there too is Mind; just as where Life, there is there also Soul. But in irrational lives their soul is life devoid of mind; for Min...
(2) But in irrational lives Mind is their nature. For where is Soul, there too is Mind; just as where Life, there is there also Soul. But in irrational lives their soul is life devoid of mind; for Mind is the in-worker of the souls of men for good - He works on them for their own good. In lives irrational He doth co-operate with each one's nature; but in the souls of men He counteracteth them. For every soul, when it becomes embodied, is instantly depraved by pleasure and by pain. For in a compound body, just like juices, pain and pleasure seethe, and into them the soul, on entering in, is plunged.
How, therefore, is it possible that the soul, which is detained by so many evils, can ever become sufficient to an energy of this kind? It is,...
(2) How, therefore, is it possible that the soul, which is detained by so many evils, can ever become sufficient to an energy of this kind? It is, indeed, by no means reasonable to suppose that she can. For if at any time we appear to be capable of effecting this, it is alone through participating of, and being illuminated by, the Gods, that we enjoy the divine energy. Hence the soul does not participate of divine works, so far as she possesses her own proper virtue and wisdom; though if works of this kind pertained to the soul, every soul would perform them, or that soul alone which possessed its proper perfection. Now, however, neither of these is sufficiently prepared for this purpose; but even the perfect soul is imperfect as with reference to divine energy. The theurgic energy, therefore, is a different thing, and the felicitous accomplishment of divine works is imparted by the Gods alone. For if this were not the case, the worship of the Gods would not, in short, be requisite, but divine goods might be present with us from ourselves, without the exercise of religion. If, therefore, these opinions are insane and stupid, it is proper to abandon an hypothesis of this kind, as not affording a cause which deserves to be mentioned of the accomplishment of divine works.
Chapter 22: Of the New Regeneration in Christ [from] out of the old Adamical Man. The Blossom of the Holy Bud. The noble Gate of the right [and] true Christianity. (14)
Thus also we know, that the Soul is a Spirit, generated out of God the Father, in the Throne and Entrance out of the recomprehended [or reconceived]...
(14) Thus also we know, that the Soul is a Spirit, generated out of God the Father, in the Throne and Entrance out of the recomprehended [or reconceived] Will, out of the Darkness into the Light, to the generating of the Heart of God; and that [Soul] is free to elevate itself above mit in the Will, or in the Meekness in the Will of the Father, to comprehend and incline itself to the Birth of the Heart of God the Father.
The Primordial Spirit and the Conscious Spirit (16)
When the conscious spirit has been transformed into the primordial spirit, then only can one say that it has attained an unending capacity for transfo...
(16) But if the work is so far successful, then all belonging to the dark principle is entirely destroyed, and the body born into pure light. When the conscious spirit has been transformed into the primordial spirit, then only can one say that it has attained an unending capacity for transformation, and departing from the cycle of births, has been brought to the six-fold (6) present, golden spirit. If this method of ennobling is not applied, how will the way of being born and dying be escaped?
Chapter 19: Of the Entering of the Souls to God, and of the wicked Souls Entering into Perdition. Of the Gate of the Body's Breaking off [or Parting] from the Soul. (5)
For the Soul which is out of the first Principle (out of the Band of the Eternity) was breathed into the Element of the Body, to [be] the Image of God...
(5) For the Soul which is out of the first Principle (out of the Band of the Eternity) was breathed into the Element of the Body, to [be] the Image of God, out of the strong Might of God, and enlightened from the divine Light, so that it has received an angelical Source [or Quality;] but when it went forth out of the Light of God into the Spirit of this World, then there sprung up in it the Source of the first Principle; and it neither saw nor felt the Kingdom of God any more, till that the Heart of God set itself in the Midst again; into that the Soul must enter again, and be born anew.
From the world of physical pursuits the initiates of old called their disciples into the life of the mind and the spirit. Throughout the ages, the...
(37) From the world of physical pursuits the initiates of old called their disciples into the life of the mind and the spirit. Throughout the ages, the Mysteries have stood at the threshold of Reality--that hypothetical spot between noumenon and phenomenon, the Substance and the shadow. The gates of the Mysteries stand ever ajar and those who will may pass through into the spacious domicile of spirit. The world of philosophy lies neither to the right nor to the left, neither above nor below. Like a subtle essence permeating all space and all substance, it is everywhere; it penetrates the innermost and the outermost parts of all being. In every man and woman these two spheres are connected by a gate which leads from the not-self and its concerns to the Self and its realizations. In the mystic this gate is the heart, and through spiritualization of his emotions he contacts that more elevated plane which, once felt and known, becomes the sum of the worth-while. In the philosopher, reason is the gate between the outer and the inner worlds, the illumined mind bridging the chasm between the corporeal and the incorporeal. Thus godhood is born within the one who sees, and from the concerns of men he rises to the concerns of gods.
Chapter XX: The True Gnostic Exercises Patience and Self - Restraint. (18)
What, then, let them tell us, is the cause of such a soul not being cared for from the beginning? Either that it is not worthy (and somehow a care...
(18) What, then, let them tell us, is the cause of such a soul not being cared for from the beginning? Either that it is not worthy (and somehow a care for it comes to it as from repentance), or it is a saved nature, as he would have it; and this, of necessity, from the beginning, being cared for by reason of its affinity, afforded no entrance to the impure spirits, unless by being forced and found feeble. For were he to grant that on repentance it preferred what was better, he will say this unwillingly, being what the truth we hold teaches; namely, that salvation is from a change due to obedience, but not from nature.
Chapter 5: Of the Third Principle, or Creation of the material World, with the Stars and Elements; wherein the First and Second Principles are more clearly understood. (3)
For you find in the Root of the Original of the Spirit of the Soul, in itself, in the Substance of the eternal Birth and incorruptible eternal Band of...
(3) For you find in the Root of the Original of the Spirit of the Soul, in itself, in the Substance of the eternal Birth and incorruptible eternal Band of the Soul, the most exceeding horrible enemicitious irksome Source, wherein the Soul (without the Light of God) is like all Devils, wherein their eternal Source consists, being an Enmity in itself, a Will striving against God [and Goodness,] it desires nothing that is pleasant or good, it is a climbing up of Pride in the Strength of the Fire, a bitter, [fierce, odious, Malice, or] Wrathfulness against Paradise, against God, against the Kingdom of Heaven; also against all Creatures in the second and third Principle, lifting up themselves alone, [against all this,] as the Bitterness in the Fire does.
If it be that they meet with evil things providentially, and with a view to their preservation, this is not an evil, but a good, and from the Good, Wh...
(24) But does some one say that souls are evil? If it be that they meet with evil things providentially, and with a view to their preservation, this is not an evil, but a good, and from the Good, Who makes even the evil good. But, if we say that souls become evil, in what respect do they become evil, except in the failure of their good habits and energies; and, by reason of their own lack of strength, missing their aim and tripping? For we also say, that the air around us becomes dark by failure and absence of light, and yet the light itself is always light, that which enlightens even the darkness. The Evil, then, is neither in demons nor in us, as an existent evil, but as a failure and dearth of the perfection of our own proper goods.
For the soul in contemplating blessed spectacles, acquires another life, energizes according to another energy, and is then rightly considered as no l...
(2) But it is evident, from the effects themselves, that what we now say is the salvation of the soul. For the soul in contemplating blessed spectacles, acquires another life, energizes according to another energy, and is then rightly considered as no longer ranking in the order of man. Frequently, likewise, abandoning her own life, she exchanges it for the most blessed energy of the Gods. If, therefore, the ascent through invocations imparts to the priests purification from passions, a liberation from generation, and a union with a divine principle, how is it possible to connect with it any thing of passion? For an invocation of this kind does not draw down the impassive and pure Gods, to that which is passive and impure; but, on the contrary, it renders us, who have become passive through generation, pure and immutable.