Friday, April 2nd, 1982

Nature Outline

by Anthony J. Damiani

Paper V09MP

3-LETTER CODE: ASN

TOPIC: Astronoesis

SUBJECT: Nature

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): 1982 0402a V12rp. Plotinus - One.DOC & PDF

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: See Nature Outline in Astronoesis, pp. 226-229, for Plotinus references

AD HANDWRITING: This retyped version is the same (but prior to the handwritten additions and most of the edits) as ASN MASTER NATURE 1-25.PDF (pp. 1-5), which is partly typewriter typed and partly handwritten by a student (dictated by AD) and has extensive AD and some student edits

COMPLETENESS: Full Paper

PUBLISHABILITY: No, already published in Astronoesis in a different form

ALTERNATE VERSIONS: Nature Outline as read in WG Classes 1982 0319a and 1982 0326a; 1982 0326PC-16R15.PDF (pp. 9-10) (typewriter typed, no edits)

DATES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: 1982 0319, 0326, 0402

VERSION OF PAPER IN ASTRONOESIS: This is an early draft which is published in a different form in Astronoesis, Chapter 4, The System of Nature, Nature Outline, pp. 226-229

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2024

NOTES:

• RETYPED AD PAPER presented in class (V09MP).

• This is 1982 04/02c, Nature Outline, and the third entry associated with this date. 1982 04/02a = Plotinus; One Class. 1982 04/02b = One Outline. 1982 04/02d = The One: The Only Perfection Paper. 1982 04/02e = Astrology; Nature Seminar, for which we have no audio, just JF notes.

• This Outline is very similar to 1982 0326d V09MP but has some differences and so has been retyped separately here.

NATURE OUTLINE

[Paper as read by AS in WG Class 1982 0402a Begins]

1. Following the discussion of the three primal Hypostases, we find that these also exist in and for the system of Nature. Plotinus is speaking here of the entirety of universal manifestation to which he applies the principles of Unity, Intellect or Being, and Soul.

2. The unity of universal manifestation is found in the Logos principle within the Universal Soul or Demiurge. Universal Soul contemplates the Ideas in the Nous, and the assimilation of these Ideas by Soul is an abiding wisdom. This is the Logos, or Unified Reason-Principle of the universe.

3. The "in-forming of matter" by these reason-principles, or more precisely their reflection in the mirror of non-being results in the stratification of matter into various grades. This he refers to as the "tentative illumining of matter," the tracing in matter of the idea of the cosmos. This corresponds to the second Hypostasis. It is the Intellect of Universal Manifestation, the Being of Non-Being.

4. The soul or principle of animation for the universe is a system of living images of reason-principles corresponding to the third Hypostasis. These vital and separable images in the soul reflect the immutable Ideas in the Intellect. The graded powers of the Soul will combine the forms within it with the appropriate grades of illumined matter to produce the hylomorphic entities.

5. Now in the fourth aspect or Body of universal manifestation, we will also find a reflection of the three prior principles. The material manifestation is divided into inerratic, planetary, and sublunary spheres, corresponding to its intellect, soul, and body.

6. The life of the Demiurgic Soul is the unity aspect of this universal body and it pervades the entire corporeal manifestation of the unified life or force fields.

7. It is the cosmic soul which elaborates the demiurgic productions and manifests the three material worlds. Itself a subjective soul rooted in the Nous, the cosmic soul has a series of unembodied powers, the last of which is intellective imagination. The intellective imagination combines in itself the living images and illumined matter.

8. The intellective imagination projects from itself the inerratic sphere as a subordinate image of the living form or Idea of Man within itself. This sphere of stars is embedded in the life-fields and is the Intellect of our sensible cosmos.

9. The imaginal essence projected by the World-Soul contains also an image of its graded powers which form the planetary spheres, the Soul aspect of our cosmos.

10. The system of living forms is spoken of as Nature, the last of the productive powers reaching down to the vegetable kingdom.

11. Nature, this emanation of Soul, is in contemplation of Soul, and this contemplation is a producing.

12. The cosmocrators in the system of Nature are the vehicles of the higher soul powers, and they are the agents in the fabrication of bodies, organizing the elements or bhutas into bodies, and in this organization there is the embodiment of reason-principles into matter.

13. Nature can thus be conceived as an intermediary between the lowest phase of Soul, its intellectual imagination, and the corporeal sensible world. It may be referred to as an imaginal essence, or image-bearing light, as receiving the seminal essences made of the substance of the imagination. It is this spark or fragment of the divine in Nature which is the organizing and individuating logos of any body--a star, planet, and so on.

14. Nature is the medium through which our soul, or rather a light from it, is associated with various vehicles in the cosmos, principally the astral body. Our personalities are thus bound up with the stars.

[Paper as read by AS in WG Class 1982 0402a Ends]