Thursday, November 5th, 1981

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

November 5b, 1981

PLOTINUS: NATURE

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Nature

SUBSUBJECTS: Gnostic Functions, Tropical Zodiac, Liberated Order, Dragon, Two Souls, Nidana Chain

CONTENTS:

Two ways of viewing fourth quadrant: 1) vertical view: Demiurgic Intellect; 2) horizontal view: Soul's capacity to produce

Quote from Plotinus III.8.3 on All-Soul and Nature-Principle

Universal Soul's contemplation produces Liberated Order (Nature)

Two aspects of Universal Soul: 1) All-Soul (entire 3rd quadrant); 2) last four houses/Sun in Aquarius

Powers of Soul invested in Sun in Aquarius; Sun-Nature relation produces twelfth house

Liberated Order presides over inerratic sphere; seven powers of Soul imaged as cosmocrators

Seven powers differentiated on four levels prior to twelfth house operation

Fourth quadrant exaltations: Mars in Capricorn = buddhi linga; Empties in Aquarius = four ways of knowing Mars in Capricorn; Venus in Pisces = buddhi bhava (gnostic functions in twelfth house)

Earth entity: twelvefold structure (signs); geocentric perspective of planets; tropical zodiac as Earth's aura

Dignity function of soul powers at level of Earth; example of Venus; limitation of soul powers in Earth context

Tropical zodiac as traces of life in matter/accumulated memory of Earth's evolution; as Jung's archetypes

Sidereal zodiac as background field forces translated by planetary system into life forms appearing on Earth; parallel to human development

Metaphysics/symbolism uses language of tropical zodiac

Lower soul: part of Dragon/cosmic circuit; interrelationship of natal chart with Earth's chart/transits; provides occasion for unfolding of higher soul's reason-principles

Higher soul: unembodied; interprets cosmic circuit occasions; beyond images supplied by earthly experience

Lower soul always trying to block out the light; also the condition by which knowledge can arise

Jung's perspective limited to lower soul

Quote from Plotinus VI.4.12 on soul, cosmos of life; correlation with Evola quote on biotic force

Quote from Plotinus VI.4.14 on intruder

Mentalist coming from position of subjective soul; excludes material energy provided by Demiurgic Intellect; issues with solipsism

Dragon's dual nature: 1) positive aspect: distilled wisdom of Earth's experience; 2) negative aspect: impediment to soul's ultimate purpose; Dragon can be benevolent or malevolent

Quotes from Plotinus: II.1.5, II.3.9

Quotes from Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening, on biotic force

Soul powers must be used to regulate biotic force

Power of rational soul to guide lower soul weak compared to biotic force; need for study and application of philosophy

Soul committed to path only permitted to deviate for a while before being penalized

Quote from Plotinus III.6.5 on need for philosophy to make soul immune

Soul more willing to give help than we are aware; we automatically block out/ignore the intuitions

Orphic egg

Intrusion of subjective will into Dragon results in combined dependent origination

If nidana chain divided according to tropical zodiac and translated into astrological concepts, then it is no longer theory and astrology becomes a royal art/science

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

• Plato, Symposium, Timaeus

• Julius Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: II.1.5, II.3.9, III.6.5, III.8.3, VI.4.12, VI.4.14

DIAGRAM embedded in this transcript:

• FIGURE 1981 1105b-1. Universal Soul and Fourth Quadrant Dignities.

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (hence V10). From 1981 1105C1-Plo Nature 10R14.PDF. Original typing and diagram by CdA. THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT.

• This is a Thursday, as was the daytime seminar, although normally Plotinus classes were held on Friday. Therefore, it's possible there was some event on Friday, which warranted switching Plotinus to Thursday.

• 1981 1105a is the daytime seminar, same Topic; there's a note at its transcript's end that indicates this evening discussion is a continuation.

• This event is among those in later 1981/early 1982 when Anthony was exploring Astrology/the Zodiacs, Cosmology, Physics, Astronomy, Soul, Nature, and The Grid: Gnostic and Fabricative.

• All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, all astrological glyphs spelled out, all quotes corrected to match published version.

1981 11/05b at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus: Nature

[File 1981 1105C1-Plo Nature 10R14.PDF Begins]

NATURE / GNOSTIC FUNCTIONS / TROPICAL ZODIAC 11/5/81

In speaking of the fourth quadrant, we found we could view it in two ways: in the vertical view we see the Intellect of the Demiurge, and horizontally, the Soul's capacity to produce. (Thus we shall see the Liberated Order as other than Soul.)

III.8.3 [Plotinus, Enneads] -- "Taking the Reason-Principle, the Logos, in all its phases, the lowest and last springs from a mental act (in the higher Logos) and is itself a contemplation, though only in the sense of being contemplated (i.e., of being object and not subject), but above it stands the total Logos with its two distinguishable phases, first, that identified not as Nature but as All-Soul and, next, that operating in Nature and being itself the Nature-Principle."

The totality of the Universal Soul contemplates. Its act of contemplation produces the Reason-Principle which we call Nature, the Logos of the Universe, the Liberated Order of Gods. The Universal Soul does not itself contemplate that which it produces. But there has to be something which does contemplate that, and this would be the Sun in Aquarius, the last phase of Soul. The "Reason-Principle, the Logos, in all its phases" is the Universal Soul or Providence, which has two aspects: first as the All-Soul, the entire 3rd quadrant; and second, that operating in Nature and symbolized by the last four houses. The aspect by which it operates in Nature is the Sun in Aquarius viewed as part of the Demiurgic Intellect.

This is the framework. Think of all the powers of the Soul invested in the Sun; the relation of the Sun to the monad of Nature is going to produce the 12th house. The Liberated Order of Gods in the 11th house will preside over the inerratic sphere (the 12-fold of the sidereal zodiac). The seven powers of the Soul will be imaged in the cosmocrators. The next problem is that each of the cosmocrators has a gnostic aspect. Each planet will be subject to a fourfold division of sensation, belief, reason, and intuition. We can't find these four gnostic functions in the pure subjective Soul. It seems that in order for the Soul powers to get imaged and be operational in the cosmos and to operate with those four levels of reason-principles (the order of dignities), somewhere prior to the 12th house there must be an association. Each of the seven powers would have to be differentiated on four different levels. Insofar as there is this division of the planets, we know that the four is implicit, and must somehow be manifested. We used two approaches: first,

[FIGURE 1981 1105b-1. Universal Soul and Fourth Quadrant Dignities. Facsimile scan from 1981 1105C1-Plo Nature 10R14.PDF.]

Mars in Capricorn -- Buddhi Linga, the existential material underlie for knowing (in the generic sense of k, w, f, s) [knowing, willing, feeling, sensing].

Empties in Aquarius [4 lines, indicating Aquarius has no traditional exaltation, but for Anthony "Empties" are meaningful] -- The four different ways that Mars in Capricorn can be known. This realm would then have to differentiate Mars in Capricorn, it is the medium in which the material existence of that organizing principle gets distinguished on four levels.

Venus in Pisces -- Buddhi Bhava, an apparent subjective knowing function, i.e. the gnostic functions in the 12th house.

Another possible way of seeing the fourfold division is the illumination of matter by the Absolute Soul (Jupiter in Sagittarius, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Libra, Tail in Sagittarius, Saturn in Libra). (Mars in Scorpio and Venus in Libra -- the forming principle of the matter, Mars in Capricorn.) [Note: See WG Class 1980 1107(-08-09) in which this topic is gone into in great depth.]

Tropical Zodiac

The Earth entity participating in the solar system has this 12-fold structure, the signs of the tropical zodiac (and such is true for all the cosmocrators). The planets are thus in particular signs of the zodiac from the point of view of the earth (its relative position in the solar system). Therefore the whole structure of dignities is from this geocentric view. The constellations themselves don't have the name of the signs -- Scorpio etc. The tropical zodiac is the aura of the earth, and it is through or in relation to this aura that we see the rest of the cosmos.

So the point of trying to understand the fourfold gnostic functions was this, for it is here that we experience, for example, Venus in Scorpio functioning as belief. For instance, we have defined Venus as aesthetic perception. The way it is imaged here is a beauty -- on four different levels. Plato's description in the Symposium is quite to the point; he speaks of the beauty of physical objects, harmonious forms, laws and the highest, the beauty of wisdom. So at the level of the earth entity, we have the possibility of functioning with these four levels of Venus. The Soul power is in itself not thus limited, but insofar as we are creatures on the earth it is thus limited.

The images in the earth's aura have been left behind as the traces of life in matter. If you can philogenetically or ontogenetically conceive all the creatures that have ever lived on the earth have left the traces of their life behind, then this memory would constitute the tropical zodiac. And it is this that we operate through. The logical deduction of this is that when Jung is speaking about archetypes, he is speaking of these traces of life left in the matter of the tropical zodiac. He speaks of the archetypes as deposits of the evolution of the whole race. But he stopped there. If we asked what is meant by the evolution or manifestation of species in different periods in the history of the world, we would have to trace that to the sidereal zodiac. That would be the background or the field forces, and the whole of the planetary system would be the transformation of these, resulting in the life forms appearing on earth, which then leave their deposit, which builds up--and this can be referred to as the Dragon. (This whole process is parallel to that of the human being.) People haven't grasped this except in a mythological form, but this must be translated into a conceptual form so we can grasp it consciously.

In that we use the same symbols (derived from the tropical zodiac) to picture the entire realm of metaphysics, to unfold the production of all the levels of existence, this shows that what we know of metaphysics and the symbolism we use, is from this realm of the tropical zodiac. It is inconceivable for us to imagine anything outside of our own system, independent of our own position in the solar system and our individual vehicles which participate in the earth's tropical zodiac.

The moment you take your first breath at birth there are certain aspects (and these continue to go on). So you relate your natal chart to the aspects that are going on for the earth. Thus you are speaking of the intelligence that you are operating with as a participation in the earth's astral soul.

As we said, the vehicles you are working with are the products of this earth, so that what we generally call our understanding would be, to a large extent, the interrelationship of our individual natal chart with the earth's chart or the earth's transits. Would this constitute the reason-principles which are in the Soul? NO -- it provides rather the occasion for the unfolding of the subjective Soul's reason-principles. So the point is, we are speaking only of the lower soul, that which belongs to the cosmic circuit and is part of that Dragon. This lower soul is always to be kept distinguished from the higher, unembodied Soul (inaudible). This higher Soul will interpret this occasion in the cosmic circuit. Certain images occur in the psyche, the reasons in the higher Soul are brought forth to understand the meaning buried in those images. But the higher Soul is not there. (Ultimately we have to deny this lower soul -- this was what Jesus was referring to.) When unified with the higher Soul, we are no longer limited to the images supplied by earthly experience. This is what mystical consciousness is -- if you have glimpses of the Soul you are beyond the envelope of the earth.

It is worthwhile to understand and understand in detail the nature and the functioning of that lower soul. That is what is always battling and trying to block out the light, but on the other hand, it is the very condition by which knowledge can arise in the Soul, and come into operation.

When Jung says that any philosophy is an explicit formulation of the archetypes which constitute our personality, he takes his stance solely in the lower soul, implying that all insights are from the cosmic circuit.

The following are quotes from Plotinus on this relationship.

VI.4.12 -- "Further, any newcoming entity achieving soul receives mysteriously that same principle which was equally in the previously ensouled; for it is not in the dispensation that a given part of soul situate at some given point should enter here and there; what is thought of as entering was always a self-enclosed entire and, for all the seeming entry, so remains: no real entry is conceivable. If, then, the soul never entered and yet is now seen to be present--present without waiting upon the participant--clearly it is present, here too, without breach of its self-inclusion. This can mean only that the participant came to soul; it lay outside the veritable reality but advanced towards it and so established itself in the cosmos of life. But this cosmos of life is a self-gathered entire, not divisible into constituent masses but prior to mass; whatever enters is…entire. Any newcomer into that cosmos of life will participate in it entire. Admitting, then, that this cosmos of life is present entire in the universe, it must be similarly entire in each several entity; an identity numerically one, it must be an undivided entire, omnipresent."

A correlation with this would be the quote we read by Evola, that the entirety of the biotic force is present in each individual.

VI.4.14 -- "But we ourselves, what are We?

"Are we that higher or the participant newcomer, the thing of beginnings in time?

"Before we had our becoming Here we existed There, men other than now, some of us gods: we were pure souls, Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, members of the Intellectual, not fenced off, not cut away, integral to that All. Even now, it is true, we are not put apart; but upon that primal Man there has intruded another, a man seeking to come into being and finding us there, for we were not outside of the universe. This other has wound himself about us, foisting himself upon the Man that each of us was at first. Then it was as if one voice sounded, one word was uttered, and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing, possessed through and through of what was present and active upon it: now we have lost that first simplicity; we are become the dual thing, sometimes indeed no more than that later foisting, with the primal nature dormant and is a sense no longer present."

The lower soul is in existence, the higher brings in the virtues and excellences. There is like a wedge between the two souls. This makes it very difficult to comprehend mentalism in the way they want us to. It seems that there is something that is external to our perception. If thought cannot grasp matter but can only grasp its own interior being, by definition it excludes the energic processes. This is to say that everything is only my idea of it, including when I say that the Intelligible World is present in my Soul and operating through that. The mentalist is coming from the position of the subjective Soul and all that he is understanding is the functioning of his own interior Soul. The occasion provided by the cosmic circuit, the material energy, or that provided by the Intellect of Jupiter, I can't get to. The way the Universe comes into being (in my view) is mentalistic, and the Soul reasoning upon that can be mentalistic, but I still have a dualism. Solving the problem by joining the individual Soul with the Cosmic Soul would be saying that when Soul perceives, what it perceives is Soul, and that wouldn't include the world. Again, I'm in the mentalistic solipsism.

There are two ways we are speaking of this lower soul, or the tropical zodiac. On one hand it is this distilled 'wisdom' of the whole earth's experience. So from that point of view it may be a high achievement to be in possession of that. But from the point of view of the Soul's ultimate purpose, it is an impediment, a foisting. That is why the Dragon can be benevolent or malevolent.

II.1.5 -- "…physically we are formed by that (inferior) soul, given forth (not directly from God but) from the divine beings in the heavens and from the heavens themselves; it is by way of that inferior soul that we are associated with the body (which therefore will not be persistent); for the higher soul which constitutes the We is the principle not of our existence but of our excellence--or, if also of our existence, then only in the sense that, when the body is already constituted, it enters bringing with it some small influence through the exercise of reasoning."

II.3.9 -- "In the Timaeus…"

The Doctrine of Awakening, Evola, pp. 68, 69: "Only in particular circumstances is the veil of what is, fundamentally, a providential illusion torn aside. For example, in all moments of sudden danger: on the point of being threatened either by the vanishing of ground from under one's feet through the opening of a chasm of glacier crevasse, or in touching inadvertently a glowing coal or an electrified object, an instantaneous reaction takes place." (p. 68)

Occasionally, when something of cosmic proportions occurs (an encounter with sickness or death) then the veil of providential illusion is lifted, and for a moment you see that life is suffering and you understand what the Buddha meant. But you immediately put the veil back.

"…This reaction does not proceed from the"will", consciousness, nor from the "I", since this part follows only after the initial reaction is complete; in the first moment it is preceded by something more profound, more rapid and more absolute. During extreme hunger, panic, fear, sensual craving, or extreme pain and terror the same force again shows itself--and he who can comprehend it directly in there moments likewise creates for himself the faculty of perceiving it gradually as the invisible substratum of all waking life." (Evola, p. 68)

This entity in you wants to live no matter what the price. If you do bring restraint upon it, that would be a calling forth of the powers of the Soul, to govern or regulate it.

"Compared with it, the"will of the 'I'" has, normally, a liberty equivalent to that of a dog tied to a fairly long chain which he does not notice until he has passed a certain limit. If one goes beyond that limit, the profound force is not slow to awaken, either to supplant the "I" or to mislead it, making it believe that it wills that which, in fact, the force itself wills." (Evola, pp. 68-69)

In other words that living entity, the biotic force in you, could make you think that that is what you want. The strength of your vasanas you don't know until you really have an encounter with them, then you recognize how small and insignificant is the power of the Soul in the face of that. Then you can recognize the need for the philosophic life, then you may proceed in that direction. The power of the rational Soul to guide the lower soul in organizing the concepts by which it could understand its experience is weak compared to the biotic force, the irrational system of desires, the lower soul organizing the concepts according to what it wants and we really think it is what we want. That's why the study of philosophy must be applied, lived. So the dragon inserts itself into our thought processes, which we are identified with and we call it our reasoning, and away we go. Unless the Soul has made a commitment to the path -- if you deviate you can only do so for a while and you must return. If you don't, there is a penalty. But if the Soul hasn't made a commitment, there is no such penalty.

"This force, which is connected with the emotive and irrational energies, gradually identifies itself as the very force which rules the profound functions of physical life, over which the"will", the "mind" and the "I" have very little influence, to which they are external and on which they live parasitically, extracting the essential fluids yet without having to go down for them into the heart of the trunk. Thus one must ask oneself, What, of this "my" body, can be justifiably thought of as subject to "my will"? Do "I" will "my" breath or the mixtures of the digestive juices by which food is digested? So "I" will my form, my flesh, or my being this man who is conditioned thus and not otherwise? Can he who asks himself this not go on even further and ask himself: My "will" itself, my consciousness, my "I"--do I will these, or simply is it that they are?

"… And he who is strong enough to force himself, in this sense, to go beyond illusion, cannot help arriving at this disconcerting conclusion:"You are not life in yourself. You do not exist. You cannot say 'mine' of anything. You do not possess life--it is life that possesses you. You suffer it."" (Evola, p. 69)

III.6.5 -- "But why have we to call in Philosophy to make the Soul immune if it is thus…immune from the beginning?

"Because representations attack it at what we call the affective phase and cause a resulting experience, a disturbance, to which disturbance is joined the image of threatened evil: this amounts to an affection and Reason seeks to extinguish it, to ban it as destructive to the well-being of the Soul which by the mere absence of such a condition is immune, the one possible cause of affection--the representation in the Soul--not being present.

"…Philosophy's task is like that of a man who wishes to throw off the shapes presented in dreams, and to this end recalls to waking condition the mind that is breeding them."

The Soul is more willing to give help than we are aware of, but the intuitions that come to us are generally ignored, so after a while we set up a condition where they are automatically blocked before they can reach our consciousness. So in that sense we defeat ourselves, but the help is there, and that includes certain prescribed steps.

The motions of earth are going to prescribe the serpent that winds itself around the earth, which they call the orphic egg. If you watch the path of the sun between the two tropics, it prescribed a spiral. These physical facts will help us understand the mythological pictures.

In 54 sutras the Buddha enunciated over and over again that if you grasp the meaning of combined dependent origination you will have grasped the dharma. I think the Buddha's basic insight was that dragon, that life force, and the intrusion of the subjective will into that is what results in combined dependent origination for each individual. If we divide the tropical zodiac according to the nidana chain, and if we can translate their mythological language into the actual concepts that astrology can provide us with, then the nidana chain will no longer be theory, but as it is reasoned out, you know by the force of the reason -- if you can see that is the wheel, then astrology becomes a royal science, a royal art.

[File 1981 1105C1-Plo Nature 10R14.PDF Ends]