Wednesday, September 10th, 1980

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

September 10, 1980

PLOTINUS; METAPHYSICAL CHART; SOUL

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Metaphysical Chart

SUBSUBJECTS: Soul, Twofold Zeus (Demiurge), 3rd/4th Quadrants, Tentative Illumination of Matter, Cosmic Soul, Individual Soul, Sheaths, Timaeus, Four Intellects, Matter, Plato

CONTENTS:

Soul Essence correlated with third quadrant

Five genera of Being constituting Soul Essence

Demiurge as twofold; elaborating aspect always linked with immutable inward aspect

Absolute Soul tentatively illumines Matter; this is prakriti

Elaborating Soul and particular souls will articulate tentative illumination and impose qualities/knowability onto it

Tenth house dignities

Tenth house principles never known in themselves, everything known is coming from elaborating Soul

Matter catches irradiation of unchanging Demiurgic essence

Irradiation of Matter by Absolute Soul is through essential production, no motion of Soul producing anything

Elaborating Soul is what produces

Prakriti includes three gunas, traces of all previous instantiations of the Ideas, unification of forms with matter, unmanifest form of buddhi; this points to traces of intelligibility coming from irradiation by Absolute Soul

The Being of non-Being as basis for cosmic manifestation

Saturn in Aries can't serve as basis for cosmic manifestation

Rulers and exaltations in fourth quadrant are part of Intellectual-Principle and persist even in pralaya

Saturn in Capricorn as Being of non-Being or unmanifest substance is the first illumination on the base of completely indeterminate Saturn in Aries

Saturn in Aquarius as unmanifest function (potentiality of the seven levels of vasanas)

Jupiter in Pisces as a-viveka (non-distinction/identity)

Jupiter in Pisces as combination of Saturn in Capricorn and Saturn in Aquarius

Student question about relationship between Jupiter in Pisces and Jupiter in Sagittarius

Two approaches: if looking at unity of Jupiter principle, then there is relation; if looking at Life series and Being series, then no relation

Trying to understand function of Jupiter in Pisces through understanding bhava function based on it (principle of the experiencer or the non-distinguishing of Purusha and its mental bodies)

Discussion of Jupiter in Pisces as part of Life series and not as unification of Saturn in Capricorn and Saturn in Aquarius

Plotinus: a-viveka is one of the unique Ideas and therefore a self-identical unique version of the whole, doesn't need any relation with anything else

First illumination of Matter is the constitution of bodies and is presided over by one order of Gods

Once you have organized body, then you can insert qualities and this is presided over by another order of Gods

Reading Plotinus, IV.3.9

Five principles of mental body traced back to five parts of elaborating Soul

Plotinus: no such thing as unmanifest prakriti which is unensouled

Reading/discussing Plotinus, IV.3.10, IV.3.11

Two interpretation of "when an appropriate receptacle is elaborated"

Soul of Absolute (third quadrant) is building vesica for fourth quadrant, building all the mental sheaths which Purusha will inhabit

Nature takes back traces of life functioning in Matter but not Soul

Nature is great laboratory where she experiments with various vasanas left behind and builds a variety of forms, but ultimately those forms come from Soul

Jung's archetypes as the retention of the functioning of Soul/Life in Matter

Plato (Timaeus) on Demiurgic construction of cosmic soul and sheaths of individual soul

Discussion of partible, impartible, middle essence, sameness, and difference; these correlated with Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius dignities

Combining middle essence, sameness, and difference to make a fourth thing, cosmic soul as Venus in Pisces

This is cosmic soul as part of twelfth house, ensouling whole of twelfth house (inerratic, planetary, sublunary)

This is bringing all the principles right down into the natal chart

When a planet crosses a cusp or one of the cardinal points, it's going from one intellect into another intellect and that's why it's so noticeable

You've got to have the principles of why that is so, not examples; examples don't give you principles, the principles explain the examples

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

• Thomas Taylor (tr.), The Timaeus of Plato: A Dialogue on Nature (in The Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides and Timaeus of Plato)

• Plato, Republic, Book IX

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: IV.3.9, IV.3.10, IV.3.11, IV.3.17, IV.4.10, V.1.10, V.9.14, VI.2, VI.2.6, VI.7.7

DIAGRAMS appended to this transcript:

• FIGURE IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart.

• FIGURE 1980 0910-2-AB. Third Quadrant Dignities as Absolute and Elaborating Soul and Their Activity in the Fourth Quadrant.

• FIGURE 1980 0910-3-AB. Absolute Soul, Elaborating Soul, and Body.

• FIGURE 1980 0910-4-AB. Third Quadrant Dignities as Absolute and Elaborating Soul and Their Activity in the Fourth Quadrant.

• FIGURE 1980 0910-5-AB. Fabrication of Sheaths mapped onto Vesica of Last Four Houses.

• FIGURE 1980 0910-6-AB. World-Soul as ensouling Twelfth House.

Other diagrams also referred to are not with this transcript version. [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT prior to 2018, reformatted by jf 2018. In 2023, IT updates prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name, alters Subsubjects to make more accurate, fixes/completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, fixes errors/typos, adds new note within transcript, replaces previously appended diagram and with six others and references within transcript to these diagrams. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.

AUDIO FILES: 1980 0910a, 1980 0910b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

1980 09/10 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus; Metaphysical Chart; Soul

[Audio File 1980 0910a Begins]

AS: --on the Soul essence. We did it a couple of times, some s-- I have some notes.

S (very faint): Me too.

[Note: See FIGURES IMG_2202-Posterboard Metaphysical Chart, 1980 0910-2-AB, Third Quadrant Dignities as Absolute and Elaborating Soul and Their Activity in the Fourth Quadrant , appended to this transcript for the following. The Metaphysical Chart is referred to throughout the class.]

AS: Well-- [short pause, shuffling of papers] Well, no notes then. I guess I'll-- [shuffling of papers] Oh, ok. Now I-- We went over some quotes that discuss this diagram in a general way last week, which I'll review for a few minutes, and then perhaps do some of the details in as simple an English fashion as is possible given the limitations of my understanding, mainly. Ok, so we discussed-- the framework for this discussion of the fourth quadrant-- of the third quadrant is-- [drawing] are the two quotes on the fourfold division of the One, the Intellectual-Principle and Being, Soul, and then the System of Nature. [Note: See Plotinus, IV.3.7, third para, V.1.10.] [drawing/writing] How do you spell system?

S: I don't know.

S (very faint): S--

S: S-y-s--

S (simultaneously): S-i- [AS simultaneously: Systems.] s-t-e-z, system.

AS: Mine is almost out of water.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD (very faint): Go ahead.

AS: Ok, so that-- that sets the whole framework for talking about the essence of Soul. Ok? Then, in a few places, for example VI.2.6 which we read many times, he talks about the genera of Being as constituting the Soul essence. So that was the next thing we did. Within this quadrant now, which is the Soul entire [third quadrant], we're going to speak about the Soul essence. Ok? And he says that the essence of Soul consists of [drawing/writing] Being, Motion, and Permanency, if you remember, together with Sameness and Difference or Identity and Difference. Namely, as soon as you posit these three [diagram] you have also Identity. Namely, they're all identical with each other, informing the essence of Soul, and there's differences between them. Now, as-- this problem has come up in several places so maybe I'll try and mention it again. I think it's not proper to s-- to conceive of Soul essence-- or let's say, there is one way in which you can conceive of Soul essence as having these five constituents. But there is another way which should also be kept in mind in which the Soul essence is one entire homogenous thing. And to speak about these as its parts in some way is not quite completely the whole case. It is a [drawing] unified essence, it is all one essence, and even though we distinguish these various aspects of it, we have to remember that in a sense it is one essence, it is Soul essence.

S (simultaneously): Yeah, don't you mean-- isn't the whole line one essence [diagram]?

AS: Ok, now, [S simultaneously: Ok.] I would say the way I'm working this is that originally this part of the line here [diagram] is included within this one [diagram]. And when we-- when we go over that quote on the twofold Zeus, you'll see. But this part [diagram] he speaks about as the Demiurge, ok, and he says there's no concept of time, it's an immutable essence, ok. It's like the inward aspect of the Demiurge, it's the inward aspect of the Soul, the Soul's essence itself. Ok? Now the Soul also has this elaborating aspect, and in fact, it could not otherwi-- well-- In some sense, it's true, it could not otherwise be Soul, ok, because this outward aspect is nothing else than the essential outpouring of the activity of the Soul, ok, so it doesn't have to be other than itself in order to have this outward active aspect. Now, he mentions this even right in VI.2 where he speaks about the categories and he says that these are [drawing] universal principles. [S: (No), that's not enough.] Each of these is a unity, namely Being [diagram], Motion [diagram], and Permanence [diagram]. And then he talks about there's particular life, each particular soul has [drawing/writing] a particular life [diagram], a particular being [diagram], and a particular intellect [diagram]. And we took off on that and said, well, that should mean this side of the Soul [diagram], the elaborating Soul, in which, instead of this Universal-- or instead of the absolute Being of the Soul, the Demiurge, you now have a particularized being, and instead of absolute Life of the Soul you have a particularized life, and instead of the absolute Intellect, you have a particular kind of intellect. [student assents, faint] Ok? And that [writing] these three here, particular intellect, particular life, and a particular being, let's say to that one. And I think we tried to say that also you could conceive that the Sameness and the Difference that were here [diagram] got hypostasized as a particular sameness [diagram] and a particular difference [diagram] also. So you have this hypostazation of these five on the right side [diagram], on the elaborating Soul side. Ok?

Now, he doesn't really say a lot about this side [diagram] in VI.2 where he talks about the genera 'cause he's mainly concerned with the absolute genera of Being that constitute Soul essence. So we had to go to other quotes where he does distinguish between the Absolute or All-Soul and the Universal Soul and then the particular soul, for example. Ok? So there's a quote in V.9.14 where he says before the particular soul there's a Universal Soul and before that there's the Absolute Soul. Ok? So we used that one to try and get basic, just not particular things but just the basics. Ok, then we did, if you remember, we did the one on the Demiurge, twofold Demiurge, in IV.4.10, where he distinguishes again between that aspect of this Demiurge which is responsible for actually carrying out the plan and governing the universe and that aspect of the Demiurge which remains immutable in itself. Ok? There were actually a couple of interesting things in there also, if you remember. For example, where he said that--

Plotinus [IV.4.10, AS reading]: "…the principle that brings them [AS reads: the cosmos] into being is Order itself; this [AS reads: the] production is an act of a soul [AS: So I assume this one (diagram), the elaborating Soul.] linked with an unchangeably established wisdom whose reflection in that soul is Order. [AS: Ok?] It is an unchanging wisdom, and there can therefore be no changing in the soul which mirrors it, not sometimes turned towards it and sometimes away from it…"

AS: Now-- well I think we interpreted that as saying well even this elaborating Soul here, this second half of the third quadrant [diagram], [AD or student assents, very faint] is always linked with the immutable wisdom which is within this unchanging Demiurgic Soul here [diagram], if we could put it that way. And, one of the things [drawing/writing] for example, if you say that these three together [diagram]-- let me erase these words-- if you say in particular, this [diagram] represents the dianoetic-- the threefold dianoetic energy of the Universal Soul which is going to produce the universe, the plan, [drawing] the immutable wisdom or the plan to which this looks is represented by the Tail [diagram]. Ok? Which is the s-- which represents those Ideas which are going to be actualized [drawing] by this dianoetic energy. Remember, this one [diagram] is also in Sagittarius, so this is like the plan which the Demiurgus himself [drawing/writing] contains within him, ok, and which his dianoetic fabricative energy here, which we're looking at as this threefold [diagram], is going to ultimately manifest here and articulate in the universe. Ok.

Now, this is just a general-- the general plan that we tried to do last week, I think. Ok, and then finally, the last part of that general plan was in VI.7.7. Ok, after we've laid these three out, in VI.7.7 he talks about-- ok, he says that the All-Soul lays down the tentative illumination of Matter, and that we left out. [drawing] Ok? Yeah. So, from this side [diagram] we can imagine that there is a tentative illumination of Matter. You might be able to see it better from this diagram [diagram], ok? The-- the All-Soul here are the rulerships and exaltations in the third quadrant [diagram], which is here in red, ok? He's saying this [diagram] tentatively illumines the Matter [diagram]. It's up to this elaborating Soul, which we put as the detriment and falls in the third quadrant [diagram], to actually articulate the traces or tentative illuminings which are now going to be found in this Matter [diagram]. [AD, very faint: (I) see.]

Ok now, uh-- [drawing/writing] the interpretation I think we tried to give is that this-- that it-- Matter itself, let's say, is absolutely undifferentiated, formless and immutable and so on, remains what it is, would be like the Saturn in Aries principle [diagram], but this itself as infinite space is incapable of being the substratum or-- is incapable of being the substratum for a universe. It cannot-- it cannot receive the articulations that the Soul is going to bring into the universe. So in order to make this a [drawing] fit receptacle, as it were, for the reason-principles, this Soul [diagram] tentatively illumines this and then what you get is what Samkhya calls prakriti, ok. If you look at the principles that lie-- (or) the basic-- the way we got this is following the dignities of the Mars, Venus, Mercury-- of the Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, following them down into the fourth quadrant [diagram]. [AS looking for chalk] Here we are. [drawing] These are the fourth quadrant dignities [diagram], ok? And if you follow these down, [student assents, faint] we're trying to say that these dignities [drawing] represent the tentative illumination of that absolutely formless Matter. For example, the Saturn in Capricorn would represent the shape of the material universe [diagram]. So it's like instead of absolutely infinite space you've now delimited a certain portion of space, if you-- Extension. You've introduced the noti-- the notion of extension into this absolutely formless space, and together with the vasanas [diagram], which are going to be found in that space for the universe, and the combination of those, a certain Matter with these vasanas, we spoke about as this Jupiter [diagram]. Am I going too fast here?

S: Yes.

S (simultaneously): Yes you--

AS: Ok.

S: Is--

AS: Sorry.

S: The actual pulling out of the dignities from the Saturn in Aries?

AS: No, not from, I wasn't looking at-- he's-- the li-- let's read the quote. [student assents, very faint] Ok. [flipping of pages] That's the base-- this quote I think gives the basis for all of the particular descriptions we're going to give, so--

S (faint): Yeah.

AS: VI.7.7. [student assents, faint] [flipping of pages] Which we did a few times but-- It says--

Plotinus [VI.7.7, AS reading]: "The power of the All-Soul, as Reason-Principle of the universe, may be considered as laying down a pattern before the effective separate powers go forth from it: this plan would be something like a tentative illumining of Matter; [AD/S(?), faint: Ok.] the elaborating soul would follow the tracings and give them minute articulation; every separate effective soul would become that towards which it tended, assuming the particular form as the choral dancer…"

AS: Ok now we tried to explain this. So the power of the All-Soul as the Reason-Principle of the universe and laying down a pattern before these effective separate powers could go forth from it. Before any effective separate powers could go forth, [drawing] which is going to be these mental bodies [diagram] let's say, tentatively, before these can go forth from the elaborating Soul, ok, and inhabit this realm of Matter as it were, it ca-- they can't inhabit absolutely prime Matter. So, I mean, Samkhya talks about this principle of prakriti, for example, and it says even in unmanifest prakriti you have the potentiality for everything which is going to come out of it. And this is saying something like, it's in there already, [drawing] rulerships and exaltations [diagram], because of the fact that the All-Soul has already tentatively illumined the absolutely sheer indeterminate Matter here, considered as mulaprakriti or absolute space or something like that. So already, this Saturn in Capricorn [diagram] or what Samkhya calls prakriti or what they call these principles, are already an illumination of Matter. They're like tentative-- a tentative tracing in Matter. There's already some kind of imposition. Even if it's just extension [drawing] at this point, it makes it possible for the elaborating Soul to be able to manifest the universe, to manifest all the qualities, ok? It's like this is what he calls "organized body" in other places. These Gods here, [drawing] ok, these Gods in the All-Soul [diagram] are responsible for organizing that Matter in a certain way so that the elaborating Soul, and the particular souls here [diagram], can impose all the qualities onto this organized body. And, um-- Ok? Let me stop there, then we do the next step. Yeah?

LC (simultaneously): It-- That would be an explanation then of how the Absolute Soul is the substrate and why the individual souls, even though each one in some way creates again anew, the creation is based on the substrate and everybody--

AS: Hm-- No, you got to push the whole thing up a whole level from where you're speaking. The partic-- this Soul that I'm speaking [drawing] of here as elaborating is not any partic-- yours or mine individual particular soul. [LC simultaneously: (No, I) think it was--] It's actually we're talking about the cosmic soul here [diagram].

LC (simultaneously): Right. But doesn't a particular soul eventually come from that-- that side [diagram] or no?

AS (simultaneously): It may. But I think we're more speaking about, suppose this is a Solar Logos, like our Sun, and [LC simultaneously: Oh.] maybe even that's too low a level. But that's going to find itself within a certain place, [drawing] ok, in the cosmos. It's like you situate yourself at the Sun, there are certain constella-- It-- it inhabits a certain [drawing] [LC: So you--] already organized Matter, tentatively organized.

LC (simultaneously): And that organized Matter you mean is going to-- because it's coming from the-- that's going to be the same again and again and again and it's only the elaboration that's going to be--

AS: No, I wouldn't say that's necessarily so. There must-- I would say that there is some interaction. When this cosmic Solar Logos manifests the vast cosmos, ok, all the qualities [LC assents] in the vast cosmos, that [drawing] will be on the base of this tentatively illuminated Matter, it's articulating what's here [diagram]. There will be an interaction I would say, because you have these vasanas [diagram], for example, [LC assents] and there must-- I mean something-- it goes both ways, [LC assents] there must be an interaction both ways I would say. I won't-- I'm not saying it's absolute for all universes, I don't know, that's detail. But, you see the level, I mean this particular soul I think is at least at the level of what we'd call the Solar Logos. It's like the cosmic soul here we're talking about that projects the entire fou-- the entire twelfth house as it were, the entire vast thought, when we go into that. This is at quite a high level that we're speaking of here and we're saying it's finding itself within an already organized material substratum.

LC (simultaneously): I guess I'm saying I don't really [AS simultaneously: Space.] see the difference in the-- the jobs of the two. It's not clear enough yet what-- [AS simultaneously: Uh-hm. Well I'm saying that this one-- (drawing) oh.] what the Absolute Soul does and if they ma-- the Absolute Soul is actually putting down the pa-- the structure.

AS: But pattern is really-- I mean you got to be real-- it's like when they talk about [drawing] unmanifest prakriti, it's like just the potentiality. [LC assents] It's like x, I mean-- Let me put it this-- let me try this way. It's not an individual but on an individual level it would be something like, this tentative illumination would be like we always speaks about these forces in the World-Mind, it's x, unknown, just some kind of [S simultaneously: (Forces.)] force there, which the individual mind covers with these qualities, is the way I'm trying to conceive it. Now this force must be there, it's given, as it were, to the individual mind, and the individual mind though, all the individual mind knows of this illumined matter is the qualities [drawing/writing] which it itself projects into or onto that matter. It-- you could think of it like this x force which this individual mind is articulating, but its articula-- in its articulating that x all it ever knows is the qualities which are coming from itself and being imposed here. Ok, it builds up these organized mental bodies or mental vehicles. Everything that it builds up though is reason-principles from itself. It can't do that without this basis of illumined Matter [diagram] though. That's what we-- we'll have to investigate the relation between these. But I would say almost like saying that this gives-- it seems like this is respon-- these Gods [diagram] build up [drawing] the organized body, they're responsible for building up the body. This [diagram] is responsible for imposing the qualities, ok, and knowability onto that organized body. So they're quite-- they're two quite different things. This [diagram] is unknown, you never know this. These-- [drawing/writing] what are these principles [diagram]? These are unmanifested prakriti-- ok, we'll do those when we talk-- when we describe what each of these is-- is unmanifest prakriti [diagram] with the function-- beginningless unmanifest function which is actual [diagram], and the combination of those two, ok, together with the [couple/three words inaudible] What-- what do we have there [diagram], the Sun?

TS: It's manifest buddhi I think. The manifest Intellect of the Demiurge?

AS: Ok. The [S simultaneously: A--] manifest Intellect of the Demiurge but within-- still within unmanifest prakriti [diagram], the form of manifestation within unmanifest prakriti, and finally the tanmatras [diagram], which are the substance of all the mental bodies, but when known, even when known are never known as individual, are known only as Devatas or Gods. The sub-- this [diagram] will be the substance [drawing] of-- we-- this-- we're jumping a little. But, if we put-- if we put one of these-- it seems if we put one of these individual mental-- one of these-- a mental body here [diagram], we imagine this articulating Soul residing here [diagram], it would have to have a substance as-- even as an individual here, and that would be represented by this tanmatras [diagram]. This would be the substance of all the possible individual mental bodies that could possibly appear here. But, what I'm trying to say is that these principles [diagram] are never really known in themselves, with the possible exception of this one [diagram]. Everything [drawing] that is known here within that soul's experience is coming from the elaborating Soul over here [diagram], all the qualities that are imposed. You know, I mean on an individual level I-- I-- this may be a wrong analogy but it seems on an individual letter-- level, when PB says all you know about the thing is the hardness, you know, the various forms or the sense-qualities, the blue, the roundness, and so on, all of these are forms which are originally coming from your mind. Now blow this up to the cosmic level. The entire universe is a projection of this elaborating Soul, and the un-- this Matter here [diagram], this potenti-- this traces in Matter are no kind of intelligibility as we know it. Samkhya talks about prakriti as being unintelligible in itself. We're trying to explain at least how this prakriti could come to have within it even the bare traces of some kind of intelligibility. I'll keep hitting but--

S: So Avery--

EC: What does it mean that the Absolute Soul is immutable, what does it mean-- what does immutable mean if it's building bodies?

AS: Produces, essential production. It's like this Matter comes near to it and just by its very being--

EC: So-- but it's [one/two words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): It doesn't need to-- Well, he says in the passage we didn't read in IV.4.10, he describes how the Demiurgus remains immutable even while-- [flipping of pages] deedless command, so on. We recogn--

Plotinus [IV.4.10, AS reading]: "When…we are considering [AS reads: we consider] the Demiurge we must leave out all notions of stage and progress, [and] recognize one unchanging and timeless life."

AS: And yet, something of its unchanging wisdom sort of illuminates [drawing] or irradiates this Matter. I mean I-- it may be a wrong conception but I'm trying to understand it that way. Just by being what it is, it irradiates this Matter. This Matter isn't anywhere. [short pause] This Matter is like a receptacle, it catches the irradiation. And we talked about essential production. Over here you might speak about dianoetic energy [diagram], over here you might speak about the actual motion of the Soul towards producing. But over here [diagram] I think you would have to say that this illumines Matter without actually doing anything, it would just be an essential irradiation from it. Or we could look at it this way. If we look at it with this diagram it seems to be going from [drawing] the Intellectual-Principle within the Soul quadrant to the Intellectual-Principle within the Body quadrant [diagram]. It's all within the Intellectual-Principle, so in that sense there can't be any notion of stage or progress or motion. I mean (both). [students assent, faint] See--

S (very faint, possibly part of background): It's not [couple/three words inaudible]

AS: I mean this is only a logical priority but, if we just looked at what the result would be of that tentative illumination and we tried to see what principles there were in the realm of Nature here, then [drawing] these are the principles that we would have [diagram]. Ok? Instead of doing the diagram this way [diagram], if we did it around this way [diagram], going from the third quadrant to the fourth quadrant. These are the principles [diagram] which are suspended from these principles here [diagram], these five, the upper ones. And in fact, we could imagine-- let's try and understand it, just this [diagram]. [9¾ second pause]

(We're/They're) saying that the Being of [drawing] the cosmos in this cosmic Intellect, the whole-- is dependent or is an illumination of the essence of Soul, ok. Now an illumination where? On the base of Matter. See this [diagram] is the only Hypostasis of the four. These three [diagram] are the initial Hypostases, they don't depend upon any other principles, they're self-subsistent. In order for the existence of the cosmos here [diagram], it's like there are two principles required, and one seems to be this material principle, the principle of Matter, and the other one seems to be the principle of Soul. And this-- this diagram seems to indicate that even what Samkhya calls a pure absolute formless Matter-- no, what Samkhy-- not Samkhya-- yeah, what Samkhya calls prakriti, unmanifest prakriti-- and they speak about three gunas in there and they speak about the traces of all the previous instantiation of Ideas and they talk about the unification of the [drawing] forms with the Matters, all these things, and even the unmanifest form of buddhi, the-- the form of the manifest within the unmanifest Matter, all of these seem to-- seem to speak of some kind of-- from the point of view of some kind of trace of intelligibility. Ok? And I think we're saying they have Being, it's the Being of non-Being, but there is a Being that they have which is going to be the basis for cosmic manifestation.

If you don't have these [diagram], if you just have this [diagram], this can't be the basis of cosmic manifestation in itself, it's absolutely indeterminate. So, if the Demiurge is going to produce the universe, he's going to fabricate the universe, he can't do so on the basis of absolutely formless Matter. (There's no) way I can look at it. So the immutable-- [drawing] so, there's an eternal illumination of this Matter, ok, an everlasting illumination of this Matter. That's why I look at it as being in the rulership and exaltation ring [diagram]. Part of the Intellectual-Principle itself is really in the fourth quadrant. It's this eternal illumination or illuminating of absolute formless Matter. Even in pralaya [drawing] this persists, these two rings [diagram]. Right? I mean, you'd have [drawing] the unmanifest prakriti [diagram] and the traces within it [diagram], and the union of those two [diagram], form and Matter, as well as the unmanifest plan or knowledge of the cosmos [diagram]. And [drawing] this one [diagram], which is har-- (I mean), that one we gotta-- we gotta say some more about that one, the tanmatras. Ok? But this-- this is the-- this is illumined Matter [diagram], and, if there is a high-- oh, (who knows).

S: Are you-- can I just ask--

AS (simultaneously): Yeah.

S: Are you saying that all of that in some way is contained within Saturn in Aries?

AS: No. "Contained within"--I would say that this is all illumined on the base of the Saturn in Aries. It's like Saturn in Aries [drawing] is like the whole entire blackboard, absolutely infinite, ok, and the first thing that happens to it is you got Saturn in Capricorn. Now I've got just the outlines of the blackboard and I could forget about the rest of Saturn in Aries, I really don't have it anymore. I have Saturn in Capricorn. Ok, that's the first tentative illumination of absolutely infinite Matter is to delimit it to universal manifestation. Now, you know, maybe I'm going out--

S (simultaneously): What did you call Saturn in Aries?

AS (simultaneously): Maybe I'm going out somewhere, you know, outer space to explain that, (some laughter, student words) I mean it's possible but, um-- I'm just trying to understand--

TS (simultaneously): He's saying that the first--

AS: Timothy, yeah.

TS: The first-- you speak about the Saturn in Aries as the Intellect of the One, the lower Manas of the One or the Body of it, and there's that un-- absolutely undifferenced Matter, then Saturn in Capricorn would be-- for manifestation to take place it would have to take place on something which was unmanifest. So the first distinction there, the first determination of that Saturn in Capricorn is-- is to limit the Saturn in Aries to unmanifest Matter. Prior to that you wouldn't even make a distinction of Saturn in Aries to reference the manifest or unmanifest.

S: Uh-hm.

TS: So that's where that-- how that it has to be there in some ways. Before you could have manifestation taking place, it has to have some reference to something which is unmanifest. There's an unmanifest potentiality that's-- that itself is a limitation of the formless Matter of the One.

S: So then in re--

TS: Yeah, when we do the others.

S: Yeah.

S: And so then you-- then would you say the rest of-- I'm just trying to understand what this tentative illumination--

AS: Yeah.

TS: Yeah well that's--

AS: Well that's what we-- that's [student assents] what hopefully we'll-- we'll try and explain.

S (simultaneously): Um, and how everything kind of relates to each other in a general way here.

AS: Ok well--

S: But then you would say the rest of [one inaudible student word simultaneous with S] the Saturn in-- you know, when-- you've called the Saturn in Capricorn substance and the Saturn in Aquarius the functioning of prakriti.

AS (simultaneously): The unmanifest function.

TS: Yeah.

S: Yes, right.

S (simultaneously): Unmanifest substance and function.

AS: Yeah. Its substance means, as Tim-- I think what Timothy said is the best way to-- [drawing] that this is the unmanifest [diagram]. This is-- this is this Body of the Absolute as [TS simultaneously: Now as unmanifest.] unmanifest-- [one/two inaudible student words simultaneous with AS] as unmanifest substratum of-- as the Being of the fourth quadrant. Reme-- this one is Being here [writing/diagram].

S: Right.

AD: Non-Being.

AS: Yeah. It has the Being of [S, faint: Non-Being.] [writing] non-Being. Ok, it's Being because it is the ruler-- it's this Being rulership. But what-- what is its Being? Ok, or like this one has a peculiar Being, the Jupiter has a Demiurgic Being [diagram]. This has the Being of non-Being [diagram]. The reason is if this is going to be the receptacle for all [S simultaneously, faint: For that, right.] forms, it cannot have in itself any determinate--

S: It has to be able to receive all these--

AS: Right, it can't have in itself any determinate nature. So therefore the Saturn principle is the proper Being of the fourth quadrant. So we're saying, the very first illumination of this is the Being of the fourth quadrant. The Being, the substratum-- the Being of non-Being.

TS: And then second Saturn in Aquarius for example might be like the-- within that unmanifest Matter you would need a potentiality for it to evolve, to unfold, into different levels or stadia of existence. So that would be tying back into the meaning of Saturn in Aquarius. But that still would yet be unmanifest.

S (faint): That's what he said.

AS: Like the sev-- potentiality of seven levels of vasanas or seven levels of life. Now when this articulating Soul is going to be placed in here [diagram], these vasanas would have to be available.

TS (faint): Get associated.

AS: Ok, and get associated with it.

S (simultaneously): The articulating Soul would bring out [TS: Right.] that--

AS (simultaneously): Ok, yeah, would [S simultaneously: Manifest.] bring out or manifest [S simultaneously: Manifest.] what's in this unmanifest [student assents] state over here [diagram]. But still this is Life [diagram], I mean, [drawing] and we had this one as Life [diagram] and this one [S simultaneously: (Life.)] as Life [diagram]. This is like the unmanifest function [diagram]. There were other words they had for this, they say this is the form of space and time, the unmanifest form of space and time or combination and change. It's back here. The principles for the various levels of life in which these individual articulating souls are going to exist and function is back here within the unmanifest Life of the entire cosmos [diagram]. Now we're saying, this too is an illumination of this All-Soul on the basis-- Well now I think-- I think already you can say not on the basis of this one [diagram] anymore but rather on the [S simultaneously: On the basis of the Cap.] basis of the-- Once you've established the Being of non-Being, the non-Being part comes from here [diagram], the Being part is the rulership [diagram], you can forget about this one [diagram] as it were. It doesn't enter in now because now you could say where these vasanas or traces are lodged is in here [diagram] now, and you really don't need to bring this [diagram] in again it seems. And it's only that first-- you know, to make clear that you really do-- are-- you really need to have that somehow. And then I think we explained this one [diagram] as-- this-- the Samkhya call this aviveka, which Timothy explained as being identity. A-viveka means non-distinction, which could be seen as identity. And that's exactly what this is, it's the identity of this previous two [diagram], namely the identity of Being [diagram] with a certain Life activity [diagram] together as this Jupiter [diagram]. And-- It's similar to on a s-- on a later level, on a lower level we have that (there's/the) certain Matters in the tenth house with a certain form are combined in the twelfth house as a [drawing] certain hylomorph. And-- I think there's something there, let me do some more on the principle of prakriti. Yeah Dave.

S (faint): Yeah.

DB: Could you discuss the relationship of the Jupiter in Pisces to the Jupiter in Sagittarius?

AS: Well, ok.

S (very faint, possibly part of background): [few words inaudible]

DB: Yeah, I mean the non-distinction of a-- well, the combination of the-- the vasanas with the-- with the Matter, and [AS assents] insofar as it's related to the Being of Soul.

AS: Yes, ok. [drawing] He wants some particulars here, some details. In this diagram we have the Jupiter in Pisces and the Jupiter in Capricorn as related to the Jupiter in Sagittarius, ok, as unfoldments from it [diagram]. Ok? Because that's how we got this whole left side of the Soul [diagram], these tracings. The tracings-- we should be able to see [drawing] that these tracings [diagram] are an unfoldment from these principles here [diagram] just as we're going to see that the components of the individual soul, namely the individual mental bodies here [diagram], is going to be based upon the elaborating Universal Soul in the third quadrant [diagram], ok. That's how we derive them. We should be able to see that this Jupiter in Pisces [diagram] is an unfoldment or an excerpt from the [drawing] one unified Life of the Demiurge, ok, the Being-- this is the Being of the Demiurge [diagram], ok, the Being of the entire Soul quadrant. And this principle of unification of form and Matter [diagram] should be able to be seen as an excerpt from the Being of the Demiurge. I mean we should be able to see that.

We should also be able to trace both of these back to the Saturn in Libra [diagram]. Which you should be able to do, right? No. I thought this one-- [drawing] before I do that one, let me warm up to that one (AS laughs a bit) because-- I thought it was interesting because here you have the 36 Tattvas [diagram]. This is Intellect [diagram]. It has a total knowledge of the 36 Tattvas. Now, if we sus-- this is the Saturn in Libra here [diagram]. If we suspend these two [diagram] from that, then that would mean that already within prakri-- they say that within prakriti-- they say all the-- all the-- let's say there's 24 Tattvas, they say all the 24 Tattvas evolve out of prakriti. And this is saying, well the reason they can evolve out of prakriti is because prakriti itself [drawing] is somehow an image of this knowledge of all the 24 Tattvas which is already contained in the Soul [diagram]. Ok? If we say the ill-- this is an illumination from here [diagram], which in particular it's an illumination of the Saturn in Libra. And somehow within the unmanifest Being of non-Being there's already contained the potentiality [drawing] of all of the Tattvas, let's say there's 24. Ok? That's following down here [diagram]. [short pause]

Now, we can try and do the Jupiter. Ok? The Being of Soul, ok, an excerpt from that look-- looked at as the unification of the form and Matter--

TS: It-- would you say [AS simultaneously: --of-- yeah.] that the Being-- the Being of Soul in some ways is-- it maintains a certain unity in that Soul essence?

AS: Ok, you're saying that the Jupiter-- the Demiurgic Soul or the Demiurge is [TS simultaneously: The Demiurge.] responsible for the unified-- is-- how do I say it? We-- I'm sorry, say it--

TS (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] a certain wholeness to it?

AS: Yeah. [short pause] Ok, we would say that within-- we could say that within the Demiurge himself, the-- the essence and that Life are united.

AS/S(?): Makes a lot of sense.

AS: No.

TS (faint): [couple words inaudible]

AS: Within Demiurge himself-- the Demiurge himself is the principle which unites in himself the Life-- I don't know how to say this. (From here--) I want to say he unites these two [diagram]. [short pause] See, I want to say that right-- that the Jupiter principle itself, the Being of the Soul [diagram], unites these previous two [diagram] in himself and therefore this Jupiter [drawing] is an image of that unification, unifying power of the Demiurge. Well I don't know if I can do that.

SD (simultaneously): Why refer it back to the Mars and Venus there [diagram]?

AS: Because what's unified here in the Demiurge [diagram] would have to be the Tattvas [diagram] and those certain subjective states [diagram], ok, the o-- the-- the 24 objective Tattvas together with certain subjective states would be unified in the Demiurge. And so I'm saying that it seems that this Jupiter [diagram] is an image of that power of the Demiurgus to combine the Being of non-Being with these certain life-- with these vasanas, ok, in-- Yeah, (well--/right.)

[short pause, flipping of pages]

TS: Try again?

AS: Come again?

JC: Avery, Avery?

AS (simultaneously): Well who asked me that, what do you think David?

DB: Yeah, well--

AD (simultaneously): There's two possible [S simultaneously: Huh?] approaches, Avery.

AS: Excuse me?

AD: There's two possible approaches.

AS: Yeah.

AD: If you think of the unity of the Jupiter principle, alright, you'll have a relationship of Being of Jupiter and the Life of Jupiter in Pisces.

AS: Yeah.

AD: And the other possible approach is if you take the series of Life and the series of Being and follow it that way then there won't be a relationship.

AS: Well--

AD: Take the series of [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] Life--Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars [diagram]. You'll-- the last of that series will be Jupiter [diagram].

AS: [drawing] Yeah.

AD: Take the series of Being.

AS: Then the last one will be that [diagram]. Then there isn't any relation between, [couple inaudible AD words simultaneous with AS] then this doesn't unite those [diagram] in that way.

AD: So it depends upon what context you coming from [AS assents] what-- what is it-- what it is you want to know about a relationship between those two.

AS: Yes. Now-- Actually, I think that the way that this [diagram] [drawing] unites these [diagram] is really hard to see 'cause it's in unmanifest Being. It'll be much easier to see what the bhava function [diagram] that's based on this Jupiter in Pisces does. That is the one that unites the form of the soul with the Matter. That's much easier to see as coming from this [diagram]. It's the manifest function of non-distinguishing of the Purusha with its mental body or the mental-- of the mental body with the material body. Ok, on a lower level that is the principle of the experiencer, ok, it'll be the buddhi bhava. Now, the principle of being an experiencer means being non-distinguished from a body, either the Purusha from the mental body or the mental body immanent in the material body, either one of those looked at as a certain non-distinction of a form or essence with a particular Matter, ok, and this [diagram] is the principle of that. We call this [writing] a-- oh yeah, we just said a-viveka. This is the principle which allows the unification of an experiencer with its bo-- with its apparent body. Ok now, I'm-- what I'm trying to say is that within unmanifest prakriti there isn't any experiencer per se, unless you say it's the Demiurge, ok. So there it's harder to see the unification that goes on in this principle [diagram]. On a lower level it's easier to see. On a lower level this allows you to have experience by non-- the on-- the way in Samkhya that you have experience is by being non-distinguished from a body, from a certain combination of Tattvas. [AD/S(?), faint: Ok.] Ok? This is the principle, this unification principle is what allows you to be an experiencer. And it's hard to see what kind of experiencer there is in unmanifest prakriti. So that's one thing.

The other-- the o-- let me just try and follow up the other thing Anthony was saying, if you follow (that/it up), which is that the Jupiter here [diagram], if we follow the Life series [diagram], all the dignities of Being [diagram], all the dignities of rulerships that are in Life [diagram], then we could see the Jupiter and the Saturn are the last ones [diagram]. The previous ones are the Mars [drawing] and the Venus here [diagram], ok, and then the Mercury [diagram] and the Sun [diagram]. In a sense then, these [diagram] would be traced back to the Sun [diagram]. Ok? And they-- and-- That seems to be interesting, 'cause in that way if we trace-- these two [diagram] then are more related to the Idea of Man, and remember we said (this/these) vasanas [diagram] are like the-- in-- another way to look at the whole thing, that these vasanas are the traces of previous instantiation of the Ideas, in particular of the Idea of Man. Ok, and this a-viveka they sometimes say is the traces of previous identifications of a Purusha with his mental bodies. So in a sense--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1980 0910a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AS: --you follow it back. Whereas these two [diagram] are more derived on the Life side from the Sun in Leo [diagram] rather than from the Moon in Cancer. So this is more-- both of these [diagram] are more on the side of Form as it were, or on the side of the Idea, and this [diagram] is more on-- traced back to the principle of fourfold Being [diagram]. I-- I don't know if that's-- if-- if you-- you know, if you kind of catch that. In-- looking at it in that way what I'm trying to say is that this [diagram] isn't exactly a [drawing] unification of these two [diagram]. It's more the end of the line in a certain Form series [diagram], whereas this [diagram] is more the end of the line in a certain Being series [diagram]. Instead of saying Form I'll say Life but these are ex-- [drawing] these will be kind of experienced as Form, either as vasanas or as the form of identification of a self with those vasanas. Ok? This one [diagram] more the substantial Being aspect. Yeah, ok.

DB: Just--

S: [few words inaudible]

DB: Considering the two ways of looking at that Jupiter as part of the Life series and as-- as part of the Jupiter series, [AS: Yeah.] is it-- are you saying that the-- from the standpoint of looking at it from the Life series we're considering the content of that bhava functioning, that-- of-- you know, what's going to be-- what's going to be expressed.

AS (simultaneously): Ok, ok, I see what you're saying, yeah.

DB: But [AS simultaneously: Content, yeah.] from the standpoint of the Life-- I'm sorry, of [AS simultaneously: Being.] Jupiter, [AS: Yeah.] right, that we're considering the-- the manner in which that content will be associated with-- I mean, insofar as it's non-distinct-- I mean the non-distinctness comes from its being the Life of Jupiter, something like that?

AS (simultaneously): Right, I see what you're saying, yeah. If you-- if-- I don't know if those details make-- yeah, make sense. Maybe we should-- maybe we should-- what do you think Tim?

TS: Hold off [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Actually (that distinctness/non-distinctness) would come from the fact that it is one of the original Ideas. If it's one of the Ideas, which is a special and unique version of the whole, then you must ascribe to it a self-identity.

AS: Well-- Yeah, I follow that but I-- I-- I thought David meant non-dis-- I thought he was referring to [drawing] the view of taking Jupiter as combining the two Saturns [diagram]. But I'm not sure. But you're s--

S (very faint): Yeah.

AD: Well that's because you restrict your perspective to the fourth quadrant.

AS: Yeah.

AD: And to the Samkhya view, but if you go back to Plotinian notion, the aviveka, alright, would be one of the unique Ideas.

AS: Yeah.

AD: And consequently it would be self-identical with itself and a-- [AS assents, faint] a version of the whole. So you don't need any relationship with anything else. Don't need it.

AS: So we could just-- so in that sense we could just forget.

AD: But if you want to relate it to something else then you could include it within the unity of the Jupiter.

AS: Ok, that would depend, otherwise it's a--

AD (simultaneously): It depends on the context you're asking the question.

AS: Yeah. That's real(--/.) I think we should go on. I mean I think the details are really-- I mean they'll-- we'll get lost in the details. We did a little last week and I-- I really was trying to hes-- he-- I'm kind of hesitant to try and do that. It would be nice if we [drawing] could get though some kind of general feeling of what this tentative illumination of the Matter was that he's speaking about.

S: I can't get a general feeling, I-- I mean I can understand when you talk about the Matter as reflections of the principles before it but I really get confused when you talk of the Matter as having-- as already having some kind of particular quality to it, you know-- the-- as the Soul lighting up an Idea that's already in Matter.

S: Uh-hm.

AD: You could think of it very simply this way. The first illumination of Matter is the constitution of bodies. It would first have to make body. [AS assents] And then when you have body, you could insert qualities into it. [AS assents] The body is built by a certain order of Gods. The qualities inserted into that body is built by a certain order of Gods, another order of Gods. So you have two sets of Gods, one building the bodies and the other one inserting the qualities in that body so that you can say "Here is qualitied body." [AS assents] But everybody must have the-- everyone must have these two aspects, body and quality [one word inaudible] [AS: Ok.] [one/two words inaudible]

AS: There's a--

AD (faint): Go ahead.

AS: I don't know, I think it may-- is it worth reading a couple of quotes from Plotinus on that? There's a couple of places, one where he actually speaks about is in IV.3.9. Ok? And I-- I think this is-- I know, we tend to-- See, the problem-- one of the problems is too that we tend to have a notion that there can be Matter which is like unensouled or which has nothing to do with Soul but I was-- in this view the only Matter which in is-- if in any sense could be spoken of as unensouled is this one, Saturn in Aries [diagram].

AD (very faint): Yeah [one word inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Ok? In this view, this whole fourth quadrant is under the auspices of Soul [diagram]. Now, here he says a couple of things which are interested-- interesting. He says--

Plotinus [IV.3.9, AS reading]: "It is reasonable, necessary even [AS reads: even necessary], to begin with the Soul of the All. [AS: This is page 268, IV.3.9.] Notice that if we are to explain and to be clear, we are obliged to use such words [AS reads: word] as 'entry' and 'ensoulment', though never was this All unensouled, never did body subsist with soul away, never was there Matter unelaborated [AS reads: unelaborate]; we separate, the better to understand; there is nothing illegitimate in the verbal [AS: so on]… …

"In the absence of body, soul could not have gone forth, since there is no other place to which its nature would allow it to descend. Since go forth it must, it will generate a place for itself; at once body, also, exists."

AS: Now, I think we have to be careful of the two ways he's speaking of Soul here. He says, "soul must go forth," I think it's this soul [diagram] which is going to go forth as particular souls. In order for it to do so, it's this Soul [diagram] which must provide a place for it to go forth and therefore at once, he says, body exists. Now I take this "at once" to mean there's no deliberation on the part of this Intellectual part of the Soul, I mean, it's like this tentative illumination is its irradiation, its eternal irradiation of Matter. Ok, so this [drawing] Soul [diagram] provides a place, it provides an organized body or organized place, for the individual souls to go forth and get experience. The ultimate idea seems to be to build up this vesica [diagram], the mental body or whatever we're going to call it, in order for-- you know, going all the way back in teleology, in order for this Purusha or pure Cognitive-Isness to have a place to get a certain experience. Now, the first thing that's necessary is you need an organized body, what he calls organized body, or body, just (called/call) body. And then he says in the next paragraph--

Plotinus [IV.3.9, AS reading]: "While the Soul (as an eternal, a Divine Being) is at rest…"

AS: Ok well, I mean I think that has to be this Absolute Soul [diagram].

Plotinus [IV.3.9, AS reading]: "…firmly based on Repose, the Absolute [AS: Ok?]--yet, as we may put it, that huge illumination of the Supreme pouring outwards comes at last to the extreme bourne of its light [and] dwindles to darkness; this darkness, now lying there beneath, the Soul sees and by seeing brings to shape; for in the law of things this ultimate depth, neighboring with soul, may not go void of whatsoever degree of that Reason-Principle it can absorb…"

AS: Ok? And I think that's referring to the same thing. Now, in another place, in I.1.7, it's-- it's a different level altogether but I think the analogy is the same when he says from the organized body and from a light which the soul gives off we go to form the animate. Now that's on a much lower level but analogously I think you could say "from organized body" would refer to this as tentatively illumined [diagram] and then a light which the soul gives forth we can imagine the light which the soul gives forth, [drawing] the light of that Sun in Aquarius which is over here [diagram], ok, including the other principles which go to make up that Logos of the soul here. Together they form an animate, ok. In other words, when this [diagram] is inserted into the organized body [diagram] we have what is called an animate. But now, that's on a-- you know, that's-- I wouldn't-- you know, just from the context there, it's on a much lower level but it seems analogous. That the Soul itself is providing the place for it and also all of the qualities which are going to be imposed (in/on) that place.

SD: That light that the Soul gives off, that Sun in Aquarius, is now being considered as an emanation from the third quadrant, right, [AS simultaneously: Right, exactly.] [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with SD and AS] from that, [AS simultaneously: Exactly.] not as an emanation from the Saturn in Leo or--

AS (simultaneously): Right, exactly. That's very-- yeah, we made that distinction the other-- this-- [drawing] we're not talking about-- we're leaving this [diagram] out of the whole thing altogether. We're talking about the Matter and the particular vehicles which together are going to be necessary for this [diagram] to inhabit. But right here [drawing] we're still talking about these objective sheaths being built up, the qualities and so on, coming from here [diagram], which is the Sun, and we're go-- that's what we're going to-- when we do this side [diagram], that Sun [diagram] will be traced to this one [diagram]. In fact, [drawing] this is real nice because you'll see all the principles of the mental body, pardon me, being traced to the elaborating Soul. These five principles back in the Universal Soul or elaborating Soul [diagram] will become the five parts with the inner organ [diagram]. You got buddhi [diagram], ahamkara [diagram], and manas [diagram]. Ok? The whole inner-- the [S simultaneously: Which--] whole what they call the mental body that the Purusha is going to identify with in Samkhya will be these principles here [diagram].

SD: We got two Mercuries there [diagram], right?

AS: That's right, I left out the other [drawing] Mercury. Yeah, that's--

SD (simultaneously): Ok, that's not being referred to there, that's something different.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, yeah, leave it in there. [drawing] No, we'll put it (with it). Well I have to discuss the second Mercury. [couple words inaudible] without or just the general-- Oh, so I'm sorry, this quote, yeah.

TS (faint): Alan was--

AS: Alan, yeah.

S (simultaneously, faint): Yeah.

AB: I was just going to say, it seems to support the scheme that if you look on the left side the two planets that are missing are Sun and Moon [diagram]. On the right side the two planets that are missing are Saturn and Jupiter [diagram]. And in the Greek theosophy Saturn and Jupiter relate more the Demiurge or the objective aspect of existence which is, say, you know the-- the Nou-- Nous fabricating everything and the Sun and Moon are more relating to the Soul or the lower order of existence, so it just fits in with--

AS: Mercury too.

AB: Oh Mercury's out on the left side [diagram], right.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, (that'd) call it-- There are a lot of really interesting details that are going to come out of that, I don't, you know-- [student assents] That's-- that will be an important point. And, [drawing] the other way to say it is that Mars and Venus are the only two that [AB simultaneously: They're on both sides.] occur on both sides [diagram], [student assents] which happens to be buddhi. Ok, and if we try and understand what they meant by this buddhi or the Intellect, linga and bhava, but we didn't-- we didn't finish that para, then I think we could see why this buddhi has to be both on the Absolute side [diagram] and also on the particular side [diagram]. Maybe we should do that. But-- yeah, I want to try and stick to the order. Carol?

CDA: When-- you know how Plotinus talks about the body being within the soul?

AS: Right, and not soul within body.

CDA: Yeah, well [AS simultaneously: A little further down.] how would you ex-- how would you ex-- explain that in this diagram?

AS: A little further down--

Plotinus [IV.3.9, AS reading]: "The Cosmos is like a net which takes all its life, as far as ever it stretches, from being wet in the water…so far as the universe extends, there soul is; and if the universe had no existence, extension would be [AS adds: of] no concern to the soul; it is eternally what it is. The universe spreads as broad as the presence of soul…"

AS: And the point is, I think the argument they would make, that Plotinus would make with Samkhya is that there is no such thing as unmanifest prakriti which is not already ensouled. In other words, [CDA assents, faint] this is-- this is not-- if you take-- if you could imagine no Soul here, these principles [diagram] would not be either. They take [CDA simultaneously: What-- yeah.] their being from Soul.

CDA: What's a little confusing in the diagram is that on [one/two words inaudible] prakriti is in the Intellectual-Principle.

AS: Uh-hm. So are these [diagram].

CDA: Yeah.

TS: But then you're not looking [CDA simultaneously: So--] at the Intellectual-Principle as a whole, [AS and another student assent] you know. Here we're [CDA assents] speaking about [S: So--] Soul essence, the third quadrant, in it-- in its-- its proper place, ok. And when you speak about the Soul essence then you're going to find the fourth quadrant kind of underneath it [diagram] or, you know, all coming um-- being within it. But then if we backed up and spoke about the Intellectual-Principle, that would be like a different point of view.

CDA: Well that's-- yeah, well that's what's just [TS simultaneously: You know--] confusing me.

AS: Yeah. In a sense we really [S simultaneously: (I've been--)] have to-- we're using the rings somewhat but we're taking-- if we follow this out, the [drawing] Intellectual-Principle would be here [diagram], if we do the quadrant positions, ok. And then [CDA simultaneously: Yeah, but at the same--] you would say [drawing] well this is all Soul, this is all Soul essence [diagram].

CDA (simultaneously): But at the same time you-- you were describing this whole-- this whole [S simultaneously, faint: Intellectual--] thing in terms of the-- [AS simultaneously: In terms of the rings.] seems to me in terms of the rings.

AS: We're also using the rings, yes.

CDA: So it [AS simultaneously: In some way.] just was a-- the switching back and forth was confusing.

AS (simultaneously): But can't you say there's an aspect of [drawing] the Intellectual-Principle within Soul, [CDA simultaneously: Yeah, I--] its immutable essence here [diagram]? And there is even an aspect within the cosmos [diagram]. But then your question is [CDA simultaneously: Yeah.] well why is this pecul-- why is this within Soul?

CDA: And then-- yeah how-- how is that-- yeah, how is that in Soul or should you even think of it in that way and should you just think of (the--)

AS (simultaneously): In this view, you know, suspending it from the fourth quadrant, yes, we're-- we're talking about-- Look, these arrows [diagram]-- I'm-- I'm sorry, my arrows and diagrams get kind of messed up a little, but what this is supposed to indicate is that everything that's-- from this view [diagram], all of these [drawing] principles which are in the fourth quadrant, insofar as they have any intelligibility, that means insofar as they are these principles [diagram] we show, are really an illumination of Soul. Because Soul has a proper essence but body does not. Body relies on two things, namely on Matter, formless Matter, and on the Soul. Insofar as there's any kind of illumination or anything like that, it must be Soul. If Soul withdrew its illumination for an instant, then I-- I mean in my view anyway, [CDA assents, faint] which may be wrong, all you would have [TS simultaneously: Saturn in Aries.] is absolute formless Matter, Saturn in Aries. [CDA assents] That's not quite true with the other three quadrants. And I don't want to-- you know, I mean I don't want to-- They are self-subsistent in a different way it seems. But it seems here, if you remove the illumination of Soul, it's-- you'll just have the Saturn in Aries, absolutely formless indeterminate Matter. Unless I misunderstand him and that's possible. But all-- but all of these quotes seem to indicate-- Well here, right, it says "universe spreads as broad as the presence of soul" and all of these things. And there are many places he says that body is placed within soul and not soul within body and so on. And, as-- I mean as I was saying, I-- it seems that this is an explanation of the-- the principles which Samkhya is not mentioning when it speaks about all of these things coming out of prakriti. I might have missed one.

TS: So did you get that?

CDA: Well--

TS: I think another way to say it, Carol, would be that the-- when you speak about the Soul essence, the third quadrant, you would necessarily speak-- have to bring in the rings as well, the ring structure, [CDA assents] ok, and you would speak about the Intellectual-Principle as present in Soul [diagram]. But now you're speaking still from the point of view of the Soul and the Soul quadrant so you're understanding it in a kind of a-- a-- an apparently hierarchical way, [CDA assents, faint] ok. Whereas if you were to speak about it say from the ring structure, you know, then you would s-- you would have to conceive it in some kind of simultaneous way [diagram]. Ok, that's just the way I think of Soul. So that, he asked me-- the fourth quadrant has-- has the Intellectual-Principle present in it, but again when, you know, it's-- it-- we're speaking of finding that ring structure in it because you can't escape that.

CDA: Yeah.

JA: But--

TS: What?

JA: Tim, are you saying something like that it would be Intellectual-Principle, say, would insert those three realms, those three (realms).

TS: Well, I'm [few inaudible JA words simultaneous with TS] saying that insofar as you're concerned with those three Ideas, in those three Ideas you would still have to speak of the Intellectual-Principle [diagram]. [student assents, very faint] And the point [JA assents] of view being taken is not that of the Intellectual-Principle, so that's where this kind of sectoring of, you know, [JA assents] can be allowed, whereas-- but still in-- even in that point of view, say, it's isolatedly looking at the fourth quadrant, the presence of the Intellectual-Principle would have to be, you know, immanent or operative in some way. You know, and here-- by that I mean the ring structure would still be evident. So it's just like-- it's like looking from a lower point of view up. [student assents, very faint] Ok?

AD (faint whisper, aside): Not now.

TS: [one word inaudible]

AD (very faint whisper, aside): Not now.

AS: There's one more nice-- a-- a little further on in IV.3.10, [AD, faint: Go ahead, read.] which also is to this point of-- I think he's-- if you don't, I mean-- if there's still doubts, here's one more place where he describes the distinction between what the real Being of Soul gives and what this elaborating Soul does within it, which I think is really nice. It's really the top of 270. Actually we should-- maybe we should start at the bottom of 269. He says--

Plotinus [IV.3.10, AS reading]: "All existence has this tendency to bring other things to likeness; but the Soul has the distinction of possessing at once an action of conscious attention within itself, and an action towards the outer. It has thus the function of giving life to all that does not live by prior right, and the life it gives is commensurate with its own; that is to say, living in reason, it communicates reason to the body--an image of the reason within itself, [AS: Now--] just as the life given to the body is an image of Real-Being--and it bestows, also, upon that material the appropriate shapes of which it contains the Reason-Forms.

"The content of the creative soul includes the Ideal shapes of gods and of all else: and hence it is that the Cosmos contains all."

S (faint): Yeah, it's just what I (mean/need).

[students assent, very faint]

S: I think that--

[flipping of pages]

[couple students at once, few words inaudible]

AB (simultaneously): Well-- but Avery read the next please.

S (very faint): Yeah.

Plotinus [IV.3.11, AB reading]: "…though this Soul is everywhere tractable, its presence will be secured all the more readily when an appropriate receptacle is elaborated, [AS simultaneously: Oh, yeah, great, go on.] a place especially capable of receiving some portion or phase of it, something reproducing it, or representing it and serving like a mirror to catch an image of it."

AB: Ok, (there's some) more than that.

[Note: See FIGURE 1980 0910-3-AB, Absolute Soul, Elaborating Soul, and Body, appended to this transcript for the following.]

AS: And we finished-- I mean the rest of this is-- we're not prep-- I'd rather stop there, we're not-- I haven't studied this next passage and it's a real difficult one so I'd rather stop. I think the point I wanted to make is above, where he says, "living in reason, it communicates reason to the body." Now I'm saying this elaborating Soul going this way [diagram] is what communicates reason to the body, "an image of the reason that is within itself," and we said, this is the reasoning power of the Demiurge which has within it the immutable plan for how it is going to build all the way down here [diagram], manifest these forms to embody the reason-principles. Now he says, "an image of the reason within itself," so the reason within itself would be here [diagram], ok, and "it communicates reason to the body" here [diagram], right, "just as the life given to the body is an image of Real-Being." Now he's speaking about this Soul as Real-Being communicating life to the body originally. He says "just as the life given to the body," which I would say the-- [S simultaneously: Jupiter in Pisces.] is the life here [diagram], the Jupiter here in Pisces [student assents] and the Saturn-- well, ok, we could even do just this one, even better, [drawing] sure, right there. The Real-Being gives the life to the body [diagram]. It can't get much more direct than that, right? "…and it bestows," "it" is this [diagram], the elaborating, he's back on this side, "it bestows, also, upon that material," ok, this material [diagram], the material of prakriti, it bestows upon that "the appropriate shapes of which it contains the Reason-Princ-- the Reason-Forms." So this [diagram] bestows [drawing] all of the shapes, all of the qualities and so on, of which it already contains reason-principles from up here [diagram], ok, and-- and then he says further, "The content of the [AS reads: this] creative soul includes the Ideal shapes of gods and [of] all else: [and] hence it is that the Cosmos contains all." So all-- everything on the side of reason is going to be imposed on this organized body [diagram], which itself is given its life by the Real-Being of the Soul. And the thing about "when an appropriate receptacle is elaborated" is interesting but there could be two interpretations of that.

S: Now when you speak about an appropriate receptacle, like Alan just read--

AS: Yeah this-- see I have two interpretations of that.

S (simultaneously): What makes that receptacle appropriate, where does that appropriateness come from?

AS (simultaneously): That's complicated. There are two ways to interpret it, first of all. One way is to say that this [diagram] could be a receptacle for this [diagram]. But the other way is saying-- I-- I would even go so far as to say well, we could be saying that this elaborating Soul is building up [drawing] an appropriate receptacle, an appropriate mental body, for this [diagram].

S: What was the first way again?

S: Hm.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, see--

S (faint): What--

AS: The first way is that the tentative illumination of this Matter here [diagram], [drawing] ok, the life [S simultaneously: The life from the-- yeah.] from the Real-Being of the Soul here [diagram], is making Matter a fit receptacle for the reason-principles here [diagram].

S: Oh, that [AS simultaneously: Now--] was David's question last week.

AS: Yeah, yeah, and that coordination is very easy to see just within our little fourfold scheme here. That is a very n-- I mean we could do a very neat corre-- If you want to see how anything [drawing] from here [diagram] correlates with anything from here [diagram]-- For example, how come this buddhi here [diagram] can be articulated by buddhi here [diagram]? We can trace Mars and Venus back to here [diagram], we can trace Mars and Venus back to here [diagram], and this Mars and Venus [diagram] we can trace right back to here [diagram] also. I mean there's a very neat [student assents] little four-- you can trace them all, it's like a-- almost like a closed system if you just leave it like this.

S: But then if you bring--

AS (simultaneously): And then you don't have any problem about how there can be an appropriate receptacle for the reason-principles.

S: Unless you bring in the Saturn in Leo.

AS: Ok, then-- then we woul-- if we did bring in the Saturn in Leo, we'd have to go into the whole other explanation of now this quadrant [diagram].

S: Of how the Saturn in [AS simultaneously: Yeah, that--] Leo relates to the third quadrant there [diagram].

[students assent, faint]

AS: Which we may do at some time but not now, I mean--

AD (faint, part of background): Did you [one/two words inaudible]

AS: Although I had-- I do have some i-- some, you know, vague preconceptions about that. I think we can leave it out. But I think that the other interpretation, you know, of a fit receptacle is also saying, once this elaborating Soul instantiates enough reason-principles into this mental body vehicle that it's building up, it becomes a fit receptacle for the light of the Purusha. It's like an evolutionary point of view. Once the human mind has reached a certain stage of development, from animal up, then-- [student assents] then it's possible [drawing] for the Purusha to inhabit it. If Matter hasn't been worked up to a certain stage, it's not a fit receptacle for a Purusha. So that's the other view. Except as you say, yes, it's hard to-- it's harder to see wh-- the re-- what makes it a fit-- you know, what makes it "fit", [student assents] quote. Well, then we'd have to trace all this [diagram] back to the second quadrant and we can't do that right now. That's why I didn't want to go on to the rest of this [SD simultaneously: Avery?] particular Ennead, because I think it deals with that. But I-- I'm not ready, can't do it.

SD: You're bringing in the vesica there, and--

AS: Oh.

SD: I'm not [AS simultaneously: Well--] sure-- well, when you talked about that as the receptacle of this-- what you have as the individual [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] soul within that organized--

AS (simultaneously): You want to see where we get the vesica from.

SD: Well, it's not just that. I mean it seems to me that--

AS (faint): Come on Severin.

SD (simultaneously): I mean-- well alright, yeah, that too but-- (some laughter) I mean, I don't see where that's-- I guess my question is why is that anything other than the simple presence of the (one/One) within-- You're talking about those-- those two on the bottom [diagram] on-- of your-- of the board behind you is-- are they--

AS (simultaneously): Well I'm ju-- my diagrams.

SD: No, (no), the board behind you over there.

AD (simultaneously): Will you finish your question please?

S (faint): Yeah.

AS: Yeah.

SD: Those two things [AS simultaneously, faint: Go on Severin.] on the bottom there [diagram] seem to be-- right? If I-- [AS: Go ahead.] if I put those two circles, individual thing on the right and the body, organized body on the left, they're the two aspects of that fourth quadrant, right?

AD: Yeah.

AS: Ok.

SD: Now, isn't just the superimposition of the one on the other, is that the vesica or is the vesica a result of some interaction between them?

AS: Well, that leads right into-- I guess we might-- should-- do you think-- you think--

AD (simultaneously): No, I think the point now to see Avery--

AS: Severin.

AD: --Severin, is simply [S simultaneously: If you take--] that the Soul of the Absolute, the third quadrant, is building the vesica for the fourth quadrant, building the sheaths, the-- the mental sheaths, what you might call the pranomaya, manomaya, jnana-- vijnanamaya kosha, and that it requires the Soul of the Absolute chart to do that, and then a Purusha could inhabit it. [AS assents] But I think that's the point to see now [AS assents] before we start worrying about [AS simultaneously: Yeah, you've got to--] what is going to guide the manifestation [AS assents] of a whole cosmos which you-- you're going to have to trace back to the Intellectual [AS simultaneously: Intellect.] quadrant. [AS assents] Right now he's restricting the problem he's working with.

AS (faint): Yeah.

SD: Ok, I don't think that that's what I-- what I was [AS simultaneously: No, I just--] asking, I'm-- I guess what I'm saying is when you said that the creation of the vesica and the way you phrased it you said that the vesica, the sheaths, and all the things that you referred to seem to be the things that are listed on the right there as individual.

AD: I don't know what you're pointing out [one/two words inaudible]

SD (simultaneously): Soul. Well on the right-- lower right of that fourfold, [TS simultaneously, faint: That would be the operating soul (one/two words inaudible)] that circle we call individual soul with the Sun, the Moon, the Mars, the Venus, and the Mercury [diagram], [AS: But--] that you're calling the vesica.

AS: Well, you're re-- [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AS] we d-- we didn't-- we didn't [SD simultaneously: Oh.] really get that. You need both, ok, you certainly are going to need both, both sides.

SD: 'Cause when-- the [S simultaneously: (Well--/Oh.)] creation of that receptacle, couldn't it also be interpreted as that individual being, that mental body, being the receptacle for the forms in the elaborating soul?

AS: I said that. That was one of my-- I'm saying-- On a lower level you could say that this illuminated Matter here [diagram] is a fit-- [drawing] In other words, pure Saturn in Aries is not a fit receptacle for reason-principles. It's the illumined Matter that's a fit receptacle to combine with these reason-principles.

SD (simultaneously): Well, I was going one step back, I was saying that tho-- that mental body on the right there [diagram] [AS simultaneously: Oh here (diagram).] is a fit receptacle for that rational (soul).

AS (simultaneously): No, then I don't look at this as a [drawing] receptacle, this is an x-- this is-- this [diagram] is the functioning of this [diagram] almost.

SD (simultaneously): Oh ok.

AS: I'm looking at it that way.

AD: That would be the principle up on top of many cosmoses.

AS: Yes, this is like just--

AD: Of any cosmos. That would be the principle of any cosmos.

AS: Uh-hm. I think we called this--

AD (simultaneously): So it itself is not the cosmos.

AS: This we called this [drawing] cosmic soul [diagram], [SD simultaneously: Ok.] soul of the cosmos, [SD simultaneously: So it could--] and in that sense it doesn't become a fit-- it isn't a recept-- it isn't receiving-- it is the outpouring of this [diagram] in one cosmos.

SD: Alright, that was my question.

AS: It's here [diagram] that you would have [drawing] a reception, if you could speak about it. See, but then the-- he's trying to bend the--

VM: He has that(--/.)

AS: It go-- [drawing] you know, it goes this way [diagram], this way [diagram], and then it comes down this way [diagram], ok, and then you would have here [diagram], you follow the diagram is where you're going to have the interaction, if you could call it that, but you can see a common origin. Now this-- this [diagram] elaborates the tracings here [diagram]. [drawing] In a sense there's a contact this way [diagram] as well. The one way that there doesn't seem to be a contact directly is-- Is that right? Did we do that right? [student assents, very faint] Yeah, this one [diagram] to here [diagram].

SD: Uh-huh.

AS: It would have to go-- in other words, you would have to either go back through the elaborating universe-- the elaborating Soul to get to Absolute Soul or, if you tried to go this way [diagram] you would be trying to get at formless Matter, which would be very difficult, [drawing] but you could-- I mean I don't think there's a way back this way [diagram]. [SD: Since you--] If you wanted to get here [diagram], it would be there [diagram]. To become universalized you would follow this route, if [SD assents] this mental body were to become universal.

SD: You indicated last-- last week with some of the arrows, you made them double like to indicate that [AS simultaneously: The--] the interaction is mutual. Is that still being considered, that that--

AS: Yeah, I think there's a possibility, there's-- I mean when we speak about articulation, I tried to say that articulation is a two-way street, that [TS assents] there's reason-principles being imposed this way on this Matter and also whatever traces are within this Matter here [diagram], the Samkhya view, that these are be-- el-- articulation means they are being manifested from out of these unmanifested tracings. So the reason-principles are like drawing out the manifestation or you could look at it as, going this way [diagram], they're imposing a certain manifestation. In either case there seems to be an interaction. Namely, as this Soul functions in here [diagram], the traces which are found within there, more and more fresh traces are being left as it were. Similarly, as this [diagram] functions in the world of Nature, these ma-- this [diagram] is being built up in some way, it's learning, so it's growing. [SD: Well, (that/back) (one/two words inaudible)] And the interaction [drawing] then seems to take place in both directions. Jung had a real nice quote on evolu-- wish we could kee--

AD (simultaneously): I don't think that's true in Plotinus though, is it?

AS: Well--

AD: I think in Plotinus Soul doesn't take nothing from Nature.

AS (simultaneously): He says the Soul doesn't take anything from Nature, yes, that's true.

AD: But Nature [AS simultaneously: And we have to do that.] does take back from the world what it [AS assents] has constructed in the world.

AS: That's right, I should've--

AD: So, [AS: I goofed.] we can think of Nature taking back the traces of the [AS assents] life functioning in the world, [AS simultaneously: He does have that.] but not the Soul taking back anything.

AS: I see. So, in fact he has that quote, he says that Nature-- he says Nature takes back-- we have that. I don't have the quote but that's exactly the quote, that Nature takes something from the cosmos but Soul takes nothing. So then you would have to say that in instantiating these reason-principles nothing of Nature-- Is that-- is that right?

AD (simultaneously): That would make Nature like a great [AS drawing] laboratory where she experiments with the various vasanas left behind, [AS assents] traces of Matter, life, and she would experiment with those vasanas and build a variety of forms. But those forms would ultimately have to come from the Soul.

AS: Hm. So, we no longer have a two way--

SD (simultaneously): You had that-- or that diagonal one [diagram] was double arrowed last time too, is that retracted also?

AS: Yeah, I-- I don't know about the double arrows. You better leave it one way.

JA/S(?): I don't understand the implications [AS assents] of that last thing. I'm trying to understand-- follow the last thing you [AS assents] said about Nature.

AS: Yeah, when the Soul [drawing] instantiates reason-principles or superimposes them onto this realm of Nature, [student assents] the Soul itself takes back nothing from the realm of Nature.

S: That's bad.

AS: Nature itse-- in other words, these are reason-principles, they're immaterial reason-principles, they can't be affected by being instantiated in Matter.

S: But--

AS: If this [diagram] grows, we're saying, it's only because of fresh input of reason-principles, not because of anything which it takes back from Matter. This Matter here [diagram], because of its nec-- because of its-- maybe you could say this way. Because it is articulating what's in Matter, that may force it to bring out more of the reason-principles within itself and manifest them from within itself. But in articulating what's in Nature, in the body, it itself never takes back anything from the body, even though the body be-- may be-- the purposes of the body may be what draw it out. For example, I mean you go-- you get a broken leg or something and you're forced to develop a certain kind of soul quality within you. Now you're not going to take back anything of that broken leg into your soul but it may be that because you had to articulate that aspect of Matter that something within your soul got formulated. But then we would say it [drawing] got formulated this way [diagram] and not that anything from the broken leg which might have been here [diagram] got returned. However, the other way doe-- he does say that Nature does receive from Matter. Ok, so Nature does retain a memory or a vasana of that activity of the reason-principles but the Soul does not, if I understood what-- what you're saying.

AD (simultaneously): And that would be Jung's-- Jung's archetypes, the retention of the functioning of life or Soul in Matter. That retention would be what he's calling the archetypes, (the same quote).

[13¼ second pause]

AS: Ok, more questions?

S (very faint): Yeah.

AS: [couple words inaudible] once in a while. Um-- Ok. More-- were there more questions on that? That board looks like it's-- it's in a battleground. [students assent] Now, we talked a little about this side [diagram]. [short pause] There are more details and we really have two ways we can go and one is to try and elaborate more of the details of how this individual soul arises from the Universal Soul. That might be a good-- that might be something to get-- Ok, I-- I think we-- I think you want to avoid going into the other-- (We won't--) we won't go into the vesica.

S (faint): No.

AS: No, ok.

AD: But why don't you go right into the problem that Plato--

AS: Oh, you do want to do that?

AD (faint): Sure.

AS: Oh fine, oh ok.

S: Good [few inaudible student words simultaneous with S] [few words inaudible]

S (faint): Yeah.

AS: Since Severin brought it up, and he's my straight man anyway, could always--

S (faint): Uh-hm.

S (faint): [three/few words inaudible]

AS: (So does) Mercury. Ok. [drawing/writing] I think I s--

AD (simultaneously): This problem's been around for about 3,000 years. And I think we solved it. (bit of laughter, students assent)

AS: Well--

AD: Not even Jung [one/two words inaudible] or anyone, we just [couple words inaudible]

AS: Alright, Severin actually brought out the problem, so I mean-- I mean in a-- I don't mean originally 3,000 years ago. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Maybe he did. (laughter)

AS (amidst laughter): Although--

S (amidst laughter): You never know.

AS (amidst laughter): Well I mean-- I--

S: Be surprised.

AS: That doesn't--

AD: Maybe he did and he's [AS simultaneously: Ma--] around to hear the answer [one/two words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Is it-- Well that would sure be nice of everyone. (laughter, AS laughing) [drawing/writing] I just got to write this up a little bit neater so we could--

S (faint): That'd be good.

[Note: See FIGURE 1980 0910-4-AB, Third Quadrant Dignities as Absolute and Elaborating Soul and Their Activity in the Fourth Quadrant, appended to this transcript for the following.]

AS: And, there seems to be this thing going on where on this side [diagram] we have the particular, [drawing/writing] as Severin's pointing out, the-- in the fourth quadrant, this is the fourth quadrant-- third quadrant [diagram]. This is Soul essence. And this was sameness [diagram], p-- particular-- particular, and this is a particular intellect [diagram], and a particular being [diagram], and a particular life [diagram]. [short pause while drawing/writing] Ok? And this is Jupiter in Pisces, Capricorn, Mars Capricorn, Venus in Pisces, and Saturn in Aquarius, Capricorn [diagram]. Right? These are Pisces [diagram], Pisces [diagram], and we have a Venus and a Mars here [diagram]. Ok, and one explanation-- the general scheme was that this is the Absolute Soul with the tentative illumination or the-- this cosmic impartible illumination [diagram], and on this side we have the elaborating soul which is articulating that [diagram] and this is the particular soul [diagram]. And of course at this level particularizing just means cosmic soul. It doesn't mean our individual soul's individual mental body. Ok, so we seem to have then-- the thing seems to be in some way, as Severin points out, this is the whole fourth quadrant down here, [drawing/writing] ok, but is this different than this vesica [diagram] or how do we get the vesica from the interaction of these two? We said this [diagram] is going to inhabit this realm of Nature, is going to impose these reason-principles and so on. Ok? Now, if we go back-- On this board I'm going to put the vesica that we have. And remember the-- [drawing] the way we had the vesica in the eleventh house or-- it's not-- let me not say which one it is right now. Better not. But if we put the last-- the dignities of the last four houses, starting with Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.

[9 second pause]

AD (faint): Try to follow this, it might give you a satori.

[Note: See FIGURE 1980 0910-5-AB, Fabrication of Sheaths mapped onto Vesica of Last Four Houses, appended to this transcript for the following.]

AS: And, there is a way in which we spoke about this [diagram] as the vehicles for the soul, ok, the objective sheaths of the soul. That might be the best way to think of it, whether it's an individual soul or the cosmic soul. Remember we said in some way it is composed from the dignities of all the last four houses and we'll put them up. [drawing/writing] In Sagittarius you had Jupiter, Tail, Mercury [diagram]. And in Capricorn we had Saturn, Mars, Moon Jupiter [diagram]. And in Aquarius, Saturn and Sun [diagram]. And in Pisces, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mercury [diagram]. And remember, these are also in Pisces [diagram]. Namely, this is Pisces [diagram]. [short pause while drawing] Now, we have a line from the Timaeus. [10 second pause, flipping of pages] Ok. Now I-- I know you don't have the Timaeus but it's only a very short line. Oh, I don't have the other translation. But I think this is the one I want, I do want essence, deal with one essence. Ok? It's where he's talking about the composition of the World-Soul. And he says--

[Transcriber note: I am using The Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides and Timaeus of Plato, translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor, London, 1793.]

Thomas Taylor (tr.) [The Timaeus of Plato: A Dialogue on Nature, p. 463, AS reading]: "From an essence indivisible [AS reads: impartible], and always subsisting according to sameness of being, and from a nature divisible about bodies, he mingled from both a third form of essence, having a middle subsistence between the two. And again, between that which is indivisible [AS reads: impartible] and that which is divisible about bodies, he placed the nature of same and different."

AS: Namely-- I got to reread this.

Thomas Taylor (tr.) [The Timaeus of Plato: A Dialogue on Nature, p. 463, AS reading]: "…between that which is indivisible and that which is divisible about bodies, he placed the [AS reads: between impartible sameness and that sameness which is divisible about bodies, he placed a]…"

AD (simultaneously): Say it in your own words Avery. [student assents] Say it in your own words.

AS: Oh. Well-- We have essence, sameness, and difference. [short pause while drawing/writing] And we claim that what he's speaking about here is the formation of a middle sameness. From an impartible sameness and a partible-- I'm sorry. From an impartible essence and a partible essence he mixes a middle form of essence [diagram]; from an impartible sameness and a partible sameness a middle sameness [diagram]; and from an impartible difference and a partible difference he mixes a middle difference [diagram]. And he says this is going to be the World-Soul that he's constructing. Out of-- And then he combines all three of them into one whole, he makes a fourth thing out of combining a middle essence, a middle sameness, and a middle kind of difference, and makes one whole out of it, the cosmic soul [diagram], from which he also is going to make the individual souls. Ok? Now, the basic scheme here that we seemed to work with before is that [writing] this is the impartible side [diagram] and this is the partible, a particular side [diagram]. Ok? Now-- If we look at [drawing] these four sh-- the sheaths here [diagram], this right here [diagram] should be the essence of the vesica. [short pause] Right? Ok, now, noti--

[Audio File 1980 0910a Ends]

[Audio File 1980 0910b Begins]

AS: --impartible [drawing/writing] essence that's given to-- these sheaths here [diagram], to the World-Soul. The impartible essence is given by the Demiurge himself. That is this one [diagram]. The partible essence is the particular essence. That is this Mercury in Sagittarius which is over on the partible side [diagram], ok, and in fact that is the essence of partibility or the partibility of essence. Namely, if by essence we mean it's this principle, the Mercury [diagram], which is going to be the reasoning or dianoetic part of the Soul, it is going to distribute the partible essences to bodies. And he says, "from an essence distributed about bodies". So, this reason-princ-- this reasoning is going to distribute essences among bodies. This is the impartible essence [diagram], ok, and he can-- out of these two he mingles a third form which has the nature of both and that's going to be this one right here [diagram].

[student assents, very faint]

S (very faint): What is it?

AS: In some [S simultaneously: (one/two words inaudible) Tail.] way-- [drawing/writing] That's the Tail.

S (very faint): What?

AS: In some way this can be seen to partake of both. It's immutable as representing the immutable plan within [drawing] the Demiurge or within the essence of Soul. Ok? But also it is those Ideas which are going to be actualized. And so in a way, whatever this Mercury is going to distribute to bodies is based upon or is an excerpt from that plan within the Demiurge. So in some way this middle one partakes of both.

AD/S(?) (very faint): Yeah.

AS: Yeah, that's one way to see this. Ok, now he hasn't done anything yet except say from an impartible essence, a partible essence, here's one which [drawing] partakes of both. Middle form of essence. Ok? It's in both realms.

S: Avery?

AS: Yeah.

S: I think I see what you mean by partaking of either both-- both, impartible and partible, but what does it mean "produce"? I don't understand what he means "produce".

S (very faint): I don't either.

AS: Produced.

AD/S(?) (very faint, possibly part of background): That's [few words inaudible]

AS: You mean, I got to go to the--

S: Well-- yeah I'm saying, how he-- how he makes it (that--)

AS (simultaneously): He didn't say "produced," he just says he mingles them together. [12¾ second pause, flipping of pages] Ok--

Thomas Taylor (tr.) [The Timaeus of Plato: A Dialogue on Nature, p. 463, AS reading]: "From an essence indivisible [AS reads: impartible], [and] always subsisting according to [AS reads: subsisting in the] sameness of being, and [from a] a nature divisible about bodies, he mingled from both a third form of essence, having a middle subsistence between the two."

S (faint): (Maybe/Avery) I'll do it.

TS: So if it has a middle subsistence that's-- they are concomitant with the other(s).

AS: Uh-hm.

TS: But he's-- he's going to mingle all of these together, this-- to form the World-Soul.

AD: Wait till we get to Book IX of Plato [S: I (can't).] on the-- the (creator) of the soul, we'll go into more detail. [AS assents] Let him-- what he's showing you now is how the cosmic soul is being made and-- yeah, concomitant [AS simultaneously: The bare-- the bare plan.] individual souls are made the same way. Follow this plan, alright. [AS simultaneously: (Fine/Alright).] Creator God is the guy who makes your soul. Now not the Saturn in Leo, the sheaths of the soul. [AS assents] Don't confuse these two.

AS: Right, that's what-- yes.

AD: Ok. [AS: (Do you have/Give)--] The active intellect, the potential intellect, [AS assents] acquired, and sensible intellect, this is what he's making, he calls that the soul.

AS: Yeah. If you do the intellects it becomes very interesting too, that this is what composes [drawing] your active intellect is given by the Demiurgus here [diagram]. Ok, if you see that.

S: Would you state again Avery?

AS (simultaneously): Ok, I-- I'm trying to interpret this more as instead of saying this is fabricated by these two, that isn't quite right. We're saying that this is a middle kind of essence that's between these two, ok, between this immutable life of-- between the immutable being of the Demiurge, the immutable essence of the Demiurge [diagram], and its becoming divisible is its dianoetic energy here [diagram], between those two is the plan of the universe [diagram], which was samskaras here also, which in one sense is the immutable plan within the Jupiter but which in another sense is carried to divisibility by the Mercury. Ok? So in a sense this partakes of both. It has to. If it just partook of impartibility, the Mercury would be incapable of carrying out the plan, and if it just partook of partibility, then the plan for the universe could not remain the same even when it was carried out by the Mercury. Ok? So, this immutable essence [diagram] and the essence becoming divisible [diagram] and the middle essence [diagram]. Ok, that's what he first does. He puts together a middle essence, a middle sameness, a middle difference.

Let me try sameness. (Amy) just went out for (an hour). This is the impartible essence, is the Saturn in Capricorn [diagram], ok, and that's what we said. [drawing] [SD: Ok.] Impartible sameness, sorry. So this whole quadrant I'm going to call sameness [diagram]. Ok? The Saturn, ok, is the impartible sameness and it is the impartible nature of prakriti, ok, as the Being of the entire universe, the Being of non-Being. Prakriti always remains what it is and it is the substratum for [drawing] everything else within the material universe. And this is the material intellect too. Ok? On the other end, we have the Moon. This is the Moon in Capricorn and this is partible sameness [diagram]. Now, if you look back up here [diagram], this was a particular sameness, this was the principle of partible sameness. This was the principle of this [drawing/writing] partible sameness here, which up here is the particular sameness as a principle, over here partible sameness, ok? Now, I got to do this one. From here, second. Ok? If this is partible sameness-- This would be the sameness of an entire cosmos [diagram]. This would be the sameness of an individual mind taking itself as having a self-subsistence [diagram]. Ok, what does a partible sameness means? It means the particular sameness which refers to an individual. Now, in our scheme, these ones were a-- these were ahamkara [diagram], remember. This one is the taijasa ahamkara [diagram] and this one is the substantial ahamkara, also called bhutadi [diagram], the parent of tanmatra, the parent of differentiated tanmatra [diagram]. This one-- this Moon in Capricorn then would have to be the way that the individual mental-- that an individual takes itself to be a self-subsistent mental body and this [diagram] would have to be the way that the entire cosmos has a self-subsistent or sameness of being, which in this case is prakriti. Too hard. What?

S: Too fast.

AS: Too fast?

S (simultaneously): Uh-hm.

SD: Run through all those [couple words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Let me try.

S (simultaneously with SD): Too much.

S: Do you (mean--)

AS: Let me run through them all and [student assents] then come back.

S: Yeah.

AS: It's going to be hard. Ok. And the Mars [diagram] is going to be composed from both, the immutable sameness and the sameness becoming divisible about bodies. Ok? Becoming divisible about bodies means mental bodies. Ok? Becoming divisible about bodies, that sameness becoming divisible about bodies gives a self-subsistence to particular mental bodies.

AD: Why call it-- why call it the material intellect then, [student assents, faint] the hylic intellect?

AS: Why call it-- Which?

S: That quadrant.

AD (simultaneously): What you're calling the mental body.

AS: The mental bo-- oh by mental I mean-- they're mental. I'm not sure what you mean.

AD: You're calling that the mental body.

AS: Yeah.

AD: But you're referring to the hylic intellect.

AS: Yeah.

AD: (Or you're) using mental [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] (or) material here(./?)

AS: Oh, you mean I'm confusing the two words.

AD: Well, I don't think you're confusing, I think you know.

AS: Well, I don't-- I didn't follow. This is the material intellect [diagram].

AD: Yeah.

S (faint): How can it have a mental property?

AS: Oh, and [few inaudible student words simultaneous with AS] why am I calling this-- Because bhutadi is the parent of the matter of the soul. This is the s-- this is the mental body but looked at as substantial or material. Well I gotta-- I gotta stop saying mental-- The mental body is as material as--

S: Yeah, it's a mental body.

S: Body.

S (very faint): (Uh-hm.)

AS: Um--

S (faint): Material [one/two words inaudible]

S: Yeah, right.

AS: Let me not say mental body. Let me say this is the apparent self-subsistent materiality [drawing] of an individual. He feels himself to be a substantial self-subsistent individual, let me leave out mental altogether, because of this material intellect. Well-- [short pause] Another way is, I think he says it, instead of saying "I am" now he says "I am this". And what he says that he's this is because of [drawing] it's this material intellect here which now gives him a "this" to call himself. Before, the form of this [diagram] would be more like "I am I," here we become "I am this" [diagram], this self-subsistent entity, ok, as opposed to the universal principle of a-- of impartible sameness, which would be the sameness of the entire fourth quadrant. Now, of course the obvious thing about the Mars is that it's on both sides [drawing/diagram]. It's impartible and partible. That one's easy to see, at least from the diagram.

S (faint): [couple/three words inaudible]

AS: And-- well--

[short pause]

SD: What happened to [S simultaneously: Yeah.] the Jupiter?

AS: Which Jupiter?

S: [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously, faint): It's [one/two words inaudible]

S (faint): The taijasa?

AB: Taijasa.

SD: The Moon Jupiter there [diagram].

AS: Yeah, I left this one out [diagram] because this is the parent-- If this [diagram] is the feeling of being a self-subsistent-- the hylic intellect delivers the feeling of being a self-subsistent entity, the-- what [drawing] it is felt to be is this Jupiter [diagram]. The Jupiter is like the objective side of that, the felt matter of this hylic intellect, the felt matter of that individual. I'm not doing this too well. What was that? Someone (ought to/else) try. (bit of laughter)

AD: You're doing fine.

AS: Ok, (I will).

S (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible]

AD: Doing fine.

AS: What? Like that? Ok. I have anoth-- there's another explanation for this Jupiter too if you don't like that one. I can leave him out of the mental-- I can leave him out of here altogether [drawing] just as I can leave this Mercury [diagram] out over here in a way and say that this whole thing functioning towards the tenth house functions with the tanmatras, universal substance [diagram]; functioning this way, it functions towards the bhutas [diagram]. So if you like that one better, ok. [one inaudible student word] Samkhya happens to say--

AD: But Avery, wouldn't you have to have the tanmatric body as the underlie if you're going to have the functioning of the planets later?

AS: Yeah. [drawing] True.

AD (simultaneously): So that the tanmatric would be the universally pervasive [AS assents] body whereas the other will be the-- [AS assents] the specific material body.

AS: Ok.

AD: In other words, when you say "I feel," [AS assents] that feeling can be localized in a material [AS assents] body, [AS: But that's what I said.] and at the same time it's infinitely pervasive, it's nowhere.

AS (simultaneously): Uh-huh, uh-huh. The-- ok.

AD: I mean everywhere. So that [AS simultaneously: Ok, yeah.] would be the Jupiter-- Jup--

AS: The only reason I-- the only reason for simplicity I would-- wanted to leave it out right now is that the Jupiter is-- this Jupiter in Capricorn's funny 'cause it's on the impartible side [diagram]. I mean just to-- just going with the diagram here. The Moon is(--) right, the Moon is on the partible side [diagram], the Saturn is on the impartible side [diagram], and the Mars is on both [diagram] in some way. Whereas the Jupiter is funny, but there is an-- I think we could even do an explanation for the Jupiter but it's-- I--

AD: Well, my view is that Jupiter in Capricorn is both, [AS assents] both ways.

AS: Ok. I think even we're going to see [drawing] in some way that the Jup-- this Jupiter is in a sense the s-- the ma-- this is the hylic intellect or the material intellect [diagram] and the Jupiter is the material substratum of this whole business [diagram], ok.

AD: Remember the way we spoke about it? If we think of the psychic function that's going on in us, alright, and we can claim a-- an individuality and-- and each one could claim an individuality as far as the psychic functioning [AS assents] was concerned. But when he (refer/referred) to the matter of that psychic functioning or the underlying substratum of that, alright, we all have to refer to the same universally dynamic body.

AS (simultaneously): It's a-- it's a common-- yeah. This is the common substratum-- substratum of all the psychic functionings, not just mine. And when you recognize that, then the substance of your psychic functioning is seen to be a Devata or a God or the obverse side of the functioning of these Prajapatis here [diagram], ok, if we look at it that way, the luminous body of the universe, or which is the luminous underlie of all particular mental-- of all the mental functions. Ok, I-- I better go on. But in any case it is true also that the Moon in the Samkhya scheme, what we're [drawing/writing] calling this Moon [diagram] as this aspect of ahamkara, bhutadi, is the parent of tanmatra. So it's because of-- I would say it's because of this feeling of being a self-subsistent entity here that the correlate of that is the felt nature of the mental functioning. This is like the feeling [diagram] and this is like it's fe-- the feltness [diagram], the objective side of that-- of that feeling of being a substantial individual, is because of that, or gives rise to that. I don't want to go through the paragraph, let's go to difference.

[AS drawing]

TS: Well, the only other thing(s) I'd say is that [student assents] the functioning of that sameness there, it's practically the meaning of the sameness that in some ways that functioning of that part of the soul would appear to be the same with the material of its-- that it functions in or function towards. So there's some kind of necessity of it being accompanied by its material.

AS: Uh-hm. Yeah.

TS: Whereas in the others it would be different (than) [one/two words inaudible]

AD: You want to repeat that Tim?

TS: That the functioning of the-- that the particular part of the elaborating soul, the Moon in Capricorn, because it is-- it is the aspect of sameness, in some way has to be functioning as the same as the material body that it's-- that it functions in, that is, the Jupiter in Capricorn, the [AS assents] feeling substance, the manifest feeling substance. The feeling "I" or feeling subject necessarily is taken partly to be the same as the feeling body.

AS: The felt body.

TS: The felt body. [AS assents] Otherwise it wouldn't mean to be the feeling-- feelings wouldn't be the feelings if that wasn't so.

AS: Good.

TS: Then that would be under the auspices of sameness.

S (faint): Good.

S (very faint): Ok.

TS: So [AS assents] that there's-- That's why the sa-- that would have to be there as sameness [student assents] whereas-- and it wouldn't be in the others because [student assents] it's not a-- there is naturally a difference between the-- the particular functioning of the Sun there and the substances [diagram].

S: (Go/Good).

[noise or student assents, faint]

TS: Yeah, good. So it's--

S: Could you--

AD: Avery, try to finish it before the class is over [AS simultaneously: Oh yeah, we'll--] so at least they have a whole-- whole-- you know, they have a [one word inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, ok. We'll finish it. Ok, next, difference, so we have to find impartible difference. Now that-- this one's easier, ok, it gets easier in this quadrant [diagram]. Impartible difference we're saying is the totality of all those levels [drawing] of vasanas, life functionings, within the Saturn in Aquarius [diagram]. That's going to provide the cosmic-- or the universal levels of difference. That's this one [diagram], ok, the lokas. Now the partible difference is going to be the Sun in Aquarius [diagram], which is going to manifest all the particular-- is going to manifest all the particular differences in the sensible universe. Ok? This whole thing is analogous to the form side [diagram] and this thing analogous to the Matter side [diagram], which of course are very difficult to put together. And that's another thing he's going to say, that these are going to be very difficult to put together. These represent vasanas and their particular-- and their particularized manifestations as individual vehicles [diagram], [drawing] and then these here, the ones in the middle [diagram], are what are going to link up-- I don't know how to say this.

S (very faint): (Do you have this book?)

AS: Right here. I should have notes on this if I do.

AD (very faint): But [one/two words inaudible] our attention.

AS: Oh, ok. Let's say that if these-- these represent-- these [diagram] represent a certain unification [drawing] of these vasanas here [diagram] into particular differences in the Sun [diagram]. Ok? I think we could do it that way.

S (faint): Would you say that again Avery?

AS: Yeah. Well [one/two words inaudible] see if I--

S (simultaneously): What do you think is here?

AS: [couple words inaudible]

TS (simultaneously): The exaltation.

AS: The ex-- that-- that is the exaltation in Aquarius [diagram], ok, which we have in other places called the causal bhavas.

AD: Remember, any time we see an empty spot in the chart, we have a mystery, not an empty spot.

S: That's why I asked what these were.

AS: Um, yeah. These [diagram] are the various-- they would say I think, these are the various forms of oneness of the Purusha with its indi-- with its vehicles. And in a su-- in a way, these provide the unity of various mental bodies. Now what he's saying is that [drawing] if you have all of these vasanas here, in the Saturn in Aquarius [diagram], then it's through here [diagram] that you get certain combinations of those, various makings of onenesses of various different vasanas to produce here individual different-- so that the Sun here [diagram] can manifest various actual individual vehicles in the sensible intellect, the next quadrant [diagram]. Ok? If we look in Aquarius-- [drawing] Right? This represented the karanakasha with all of the vasanas in it [diagram] and this-- and that's the immutable-- the impartible difference. [AD or student assents, very faint] This represents the partible difference [diagram] or the manifestation of all the particular vehicles, the particular individuals. And this [diagram] is partaking of both realms insofar as it organizes these into various particular vehicles, it m-- it organizes these vasanas in the Saturn in Aquarius or these life traces into organized-- various organized wholes, or into various organized individual vehicles, which are going to be sensibly manifest in this-- through the fourth quadrant. Try it again. I better not.

S: Organizes the vasana(s).

AS: Yeah, [S simultaneously: That's better.] let me see. The Saturn in Aquarius is on this side [diagram], good. [drawing] [student assents, faint] Sun in Aquarius is here [diagram].

S (faint): That's on either side and therefore--

AS: Hm? And this is on neither side [diagram].

S (simultaneously): What is that? (SD laughs)

AS: This-- oh, [flipping of pages] we got to go back here.

S: I mean you're saying these, I don't-- I don't get it.

AS: Ok. If we have in Aq-- in Aquarius-- and by the way this is Aquarius also [diagram]. But [drawing] in Aquar-- We have the exaltations of Mars and Venus [diagram]. Ok? And, in between those, ok, we're going to have-- I don't know how to say this. This is the substantial intellect, buddhi linga [diagram], ok. This is going to be the substance or the existence of buddhi as a principle. (Well) go ahead.

TS: (I'll/I'd) give it a shot. If-- if you speak about the Intellect of Aquarius, ok, which would be the exaltation of it [diagram], if that Intellect is part of a monad, then what would have to be fu-- manifest there would be mani-- that is-- that Intellect functioning towards the sign itself would have to manifest a monadic-- something which participated in the monad, a universal of some kind. But what happens in Aquarius also seems to be that that is where individuality arises, [student assents] particularity arises. So you wouldn't have a monadic functioning of the Intellect there which is going to organize those vasanas. They're going to have to be organized separately for each individual (that are) going to be manifest in the bodies that the Sun fabricates for-- for it. So these vasanas of the universe are going to be extracted by the individual-- individuals as their own mind organization and implanted into the vehicles substantiated by the Sun in Aquarius.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

TS: Ok?

S: Yes, ok.

TS: That's a fairly long shot but it makes sense. (bit of laughter)

S (faint): He could follow you.

AD: Alright, let's try this way too Tim, if I follow you. You're saying that the exaltation in Aquarius, alright, the mi-- the empty spot, if you put a planet in there you would have it as part of the Intellectual ring.

TS: Yes.

AD: If it was part of the Intellectual ring, it will be a separative Intellect.

TS: Yeah.

AD: If it's a separative Intellect it would have-- it would have to operate in a monadic way. Ok?

TS: Right.

AD: But if we put the five planets there, alright, then the-- you-- and you-- you don't have a separative Intellect, now from the realm of Being, that is from the totality of vasanas, which would mean that you have the vasanas from the highest level, the satyaloka, down to the bhurloka, there the Saturn in Aquarius, there we conceive of the vasanas as a totality unified whole, alright. [TS assents] That's what Avery was referring to as undivided difference.

TS: Yes.

AD: Alright. Now, the-- the Sun or the cosmic soul, alright, that would have to be a divided difference. And in between, if we had a monadic Intellect or a separative Intellect, we would s-- have simply the transmission from one to the other, alright, and there would be no separating that unified difference. The five elem-- the five planets there are concerned with separating that unified difference and distributing the vasanas necessary to an individual [S simultaneously: To an individual being.] because [one inaudible TS word simultaneous with AD] there's going to be various levels of functioning in an individual.

TS: Yes. I see.

AD (simultaneously): Ok. I just thought that was (both of you) you were saying. (bit of laughter)

AS: Ok, let's take it in (spirits/spurts). We always agree.

S (very faint): Yeah, uh-huh.

AD: So Avery, what did he do next? What [AS simultaneously: What?] did Plato do next?

AS: Ok. I'm sorry Tim.

TS (faint): Anthony put me out today.

AS: What? [flipping of pages] Ok so, if we can follow that, which is difficult enough-- Ok, now that he has a middle form of essence, sameness, and difference, which he's mingled from [drawing] the impartible and partible of each, he now is going to put all these three together to make the unified or homogenous essence, the homogenous World-Soul. I don't want to call it essence 'cause it's got sameness and difference also. So, first he mingles the intermediate sameness with the intermediate difference, which means he's got to first mingle these two [diagram]. And then he mixes that with the middle form of essence, which is here, with the Tail [diagram]. Now, I think in particular we're speaking about these ones that are in the middle, [drawing] the Tail [diagram], the Mars [diagram], and these five here in Aquarius [diagram], the separative Intellect in Aquarius, and what he gets is a combination, a fourth thing which is the combination of all these three, and that puts us right over here [diagram], as the very-- well, could you say, I don't want to say essence, but the homogenous substance of the World-Soul [student assents] would then be this Venus in Pisces [diagram].

SD: That's a combination of the Tail, [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with SD] Mars, and what?

AS (simultaneously): Tail, the Mars, [AD: Fixed signs.] and the five dignities, the fixed signs [diagram], ok, is going to be over here, [drawing] [S: Wouldn't it be in Aquarius?] Venus [diagram]. Yeah, well this is the Pisces quadrant of Aquarius [diagram], we're still in Aquarius. Ok? And now that seems to mean, when we go over here, if you notice, [drawing] if we do these six realms [diagram], just to do one more step, the next thing he does is he inserts all of these number ratios and so on in there. And, what he's going to do is-- Now, if we go in the sixth-- the twelfth house, we had the same dignities, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Mercury [diagram]. And Jupiter rules [drawing] this realm, the realm of buddhi [diagram], [S, faint: Ok.] and Venus rules this realm [diagram]. Ok? Let's say Mercury give here [diagram] and we give all this to Mercury [diagram]. [few seconds of background student talking] The dignities of the-- [drawing] this twelfth house, the six realms of existence [diagram], ok? And this one is like the inerratic sphere [diagram] and this one is like the planetary spheres [diagram].

[short pause]

S: Manas.

AS: Yeah, manas, cosmic manas though. What is this manas then? This manas is the World-Soul, as he's constructing it, not-- the World-Soul together with all the [drawing] individual mental bodies then would be here [diagram]. And if we want, which-- and then he does all these things. He puts in all of these ratios and he divides it up into a circle of sameness and circles of difference, ok? A circle of sameness, [drawing] the inerratic sphere [diagram]; circles of difference, the sublunary spheres [diagram]. And we're saying that if you follow the whole thing down I think you can do a kind of a progression (and/then) maybe we'll end it with this 'cause the details are still to be written up correctly. If you start with the Soul essence here [diagram], ok, we went from the Soul essence to how the elaborating part gives rise to those particulars in the fourth quadrant and the Absolute Soul gives rise to this tentative illumination which we're calling impartible and partible on this side [diagram]. Ok? From the essence and the sameness and the difference within these, as partible and impartible, we get a middle form of essence, sameness, and difference [diagram], ok, which together, putting them all together, gives us the total, one total substance of the World-Soul [diagram], which then he puts all of these ratios into and divides it up into circles of sameness and difference, which then [drawing] becomes the immanence here, the World-Soul as actually part of this twelfth house [diagram]. [Note: See FIGURE 1980 0910-6-AB, World-Soul as ensouling Twelfth House, appended to this transcript.] Ok? Circles of sameness [diagram], and these [drawing] would be the circles of difference [diagram], the planetary spheres that you actually would see in the heavens, together with the inerratic sphere, the circle of sameness, and below that would be the four sublunary elements [diagram], which he's already constructed in another part of the Timaeus. Ok, and then he says that this actually ins-- I mean really we should draw this a little differently, we would see that this is actually ensouling the whole of the twelfth house [diagram].

[short pause]

S (very faint): (Do it.)

AS/S(?) (faint): Yes.

[19 second pause]

AD: What Avery is trying to do is to bring every one in that qua-- every one of these principles right down into your natal chart.

AS (very faint): [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): When you read your natal chart, you're going to hem and haw at this, alright, every one of those principles can be found in your chart. Otherwise you can't read a chart. You're just reading somebody else's interpretation. [11¾ second pause] You're going to see, for instance, that when a planet crosses a cusp or one of the cardinal points, it's going from one intellect into another intellect and that's why it's so noticeable. In other words, if you think of a planet in the sensible intellect, coming across the ascendant it goes into the active intellect, it's like going from an objective manifested state into an unmanifested state and it's a very noticeable thing that's taking place. But you've got to have the principles of why that is so, not examples, examples don't give you principles, the principles will explain the examples. [short pause] Thank you Avery, I wouldn't try to have done this. (bit of laughter) (You're gonna) [AS simultaneously, laughing a bit: I know.] go over it a few times before you get the gist of what he's been doing.

S (faint): (Uh-uh.)

S: Avery, what pages in the Timaeus were you all reading from?

AS (simultaneously): Oh, [TS simultaneously: Well (one word inaudible)] I-- I don't-- I just (share) this [few words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): Tim, which one is in there though?

AS: Um, this is-- [shuffling through papers] um, An-- it's page 122, 123. Anthony, I don't-- i-- if it's worthwhile, we-- I-- I suppose we could do it-- we could do it again next week, I don't know.

S: Awesome.

AD (simultaneously, faint): Oh, you're [S simultaneously: Yes.] going to have to do it a couple of times before you (understood).

[Audio File 1980 0910b Ends]