Monday, May 3rd, 1982

SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

May 3a, 1982

PLOTINUS: INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Intellectual-Principle

SUBSUBJECTS: Matter (Saturn in Aries), One, Triad, Number, Ideas, Ten Sephiroth

CONTENTS:

The All: anything after the One

Three components: Intelligibles, Ideas, Consciousness

Consciousness coordinates Intelligibles with Ideas

Transcendent model in the One: Number

Consciousness as neither/both substance/function

Connections to Plato's Philebus

States of consciousness and the Metaphysical Chart

Turiya as unity of Intellectual-Principle

Unities in Triad exist in a distinctionless mode; Jupiter, Mercury, Head in Triad

Matter, space, mulaprakriti, Malkuth

Idea of #10 contained within Saturn; Principle of Difference as locus of Intellectual-Principle

Four Sephirotic trees; Head correlates Idea with 10 unmanifested Sephiroth

Space as most mysterious of all

Deriving Intellectual-Principle from Saturn

Each Intelligible a distinct view of the One or Intellectual-Principle

Understanding Intellectual-Principle through Number

Example using Libra and Venus; identity of Knowing and Being

Suspension of monads from unities

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

• Plato, Philebus

• T. Subba Row, The Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita

• Leo Schaya, The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah

• Franz Hartmann, The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, known by the name Paracelsus

• Franz Hartmann, Jacob Boehme, The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme, the God-taught Philosopher: An Introduction to the Study of His Works

• Anthony Damiani, Astronoesis

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: II.4.5, II.5.5, V.3.11, V.5.8, V.5.9, V.6.4, VI.1.12, VI.6.9, VI.6.10, VI.7.17

DIAGRAMS embedded in this transcript:

• FIGURE 1982 0503a-1. Triad with Ten Sephiroth.

• FIGURE 1982 0503a-2. Malkuth and First Quadrant Dignities.

• FIGURE 1982 0503a-3. Head, Jupiter, Saturn.

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2021

NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (hence V10). From AD Supplementary Material, pp. 1214-1220. THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT.

• This is 1982 05/03a, Plotinus: Intellectual-Principle Seminar, and the first entry associated with this date. 1982 05/03b = Astrology; Theory Class.

• Typing and diagrams in the original partial transcript are by JF.

• All spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors corrected, quotes and references looked up and corrected, some numbers and planetary glyphs spelled out, all abbreviations spelled out.

• References to a few relevant sections in Astronoesis added in [square brackets]. In addition, especially see Astronoesis p. 64 and pp. 72-75 on Saturn in Aries, and also Endnote p. 341 on Saturn.

1982 05/03a SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus: Intellectual-Principle

[AD Supp, pp. 1214-1220 Begins]

NOTES, MON. AFTERNOON SEMINAR, 5-3-82.

ON THE I.P.

Anything after the One, Plotinus calls the All. To clarify knowledge and its objects (and their unity), there are three things to deal with: the Intelligibles, the Ideas, and Consciousness -- the Consciousness grounds the two together and provides the unity.

* * * * * * *

VI.6.9, 10

V.3.11 (VI.7.17)

* * * * * * *

Consciousness coordinates the Intelligible function with the Ideas (signs) and grounds them in the unitary Consciousness. The Numbers, signs, planets, and the Ideas is what we mean by the Intellectual-Principle. To speak of the transcendent model in the One, we should stick to the term Number so that we don't get it mixed up.

Is Consciousness substance or function; how does it relate to both of them? When we speak about a unity of the duality, the duality is the signs (substance) and the Intelligibles (function). So the Consciousness is neither/both substance nor function.

We have four terms: Consciousness, Ideas, Intelligibles, and Numbers. When we're coming from the One down, Consciousness organizes the Ideas and the Intelligibles.

Tied into Consciousness (Intellection) is the presence of the Good. This also fits in with the Philebus, in which there is Being, Infinite, Bound (as the Intellectual-Principle, Substance, Function) with the One represented by Consciousness. The mixture, i.e. Number, is what mixes those things together. The mixture is Numbers, Consciousness, Intelligibles, Ideas.

* * * * * * *

V.6.4 -- The Intelligibles, Ideas, and Numbers are all of the contents of the Divine Mind. Turiya is the outer circle, Prajna the next one… Also, Turiya is the First Quadrant, etc… [Cf. Astronoesis, p. 70, for discussion and diagram about states of consciousness and the Metaphysical Chart.]

We try to itemize everything in the chart in this way.

TURIYA-TURIYA is the unity.

If we speak of Prajna, each is constituted by four levels. So Vaishvanara has a level referred to as Turiya, etc. So Turiya is the connecting link as the rulerships.

The rulerships in their totality have Turiya as the connecting thread, which is the unity of the Intellectual-Principle. So the unity of the Intellectual-Principle is Turiya (not Turiya-Turiya), but Turiya having the visions [sic; divisions] within it.

If you take Soul, Jupiter in the First Quadrant, it is not undifferentiated unity within the One. The Turiya aspect of that is the unity aspect -- Turiya, but insofar as it's part of the Taijasa ring, that's what distinguishes. When they are united in Turiya, they are distinctionless.

* * * * * * *

Turiya-Taijasa reverses to Taijasa-Turiya. This justifies taking the unities in the First Quadrant and spreading them out as the rulers.

* * * * * * *

In the First Quadrant, although united in Turiya, there are distinctions, but we cannot comprehend them. They exist there in a distinctionless mode. "They" -- brings in differences.

So there are distinctions within the One which we cannot grasp. We see all the First Quadrant unities as Turiya. The Henads that exist within it are distinguished as Turiya-Taijasa, Turiya-Prajna, etc.

To discuss Jupiter, not as an Intelligible but as Jupiter is manifested in the Third House, Mercury Head Jupiter is in terms of the Triad.

[FIGURE 1982 0503a-1. Triad with Ten Sephiroth. U.S. = Unmanifest Sephiroth. Computer generated by NT from AD Supp, p. 1216.]

If the Jupiter represents the Intelligibles, Mercury represents the Ideas, so under Jupiter goes all the Intelligibles, under Mercury all the Ideas, and under the Head all the Numbers. [Cf. Astronoesis, DRAFT, O-43.]

* * * * * * *

In other words, all that is prior is inserted into that principle of difference, that space is the Body of God. That is what T. Subba Row meant by Mulaprakriti as the veil over the Absolute. [cf. Astronoesis, p. 64]

The potentiality contained in space (the germ in space) is what we're speaking of. There are comments in Proclus that matter is uncreated, is received from the One, is unoriginated.

* * * * * * *

Another way is coming from the Kabbalah:

When Plotinus says it is present everywhere, but is nowhere, that is the clue. For the One to be present everywhere, it has to be: the Intellectual-Principle has to be situated within it, everything in the Intellectual-Principle has to be present to it, but the One is not present to it.

* * * * * * *

V.5.8, 9 -- "While it is nowhere, nowhere is it not" is here referring to Saturn in the first source. "Thus it is present and not present…"

* * * * * * *

Now the problem is the connection of the Saturn with the Intellectual-Principle. For this we should check out the meaning of 10. The Idea of #10 is all contained within Saturn.

The locus of the Intellectual-Principle is the Principle of Difference. The way the One is present and yet not present, everywhere (Principle of Difference) and not nowhere (itself).

This refers back to the Schaya quote, p. 57 "Divine Immanence in the Reality," i.e. the Principle of Difference. [cf. Astronoesis, pp. 72-74 for discussion of Saturn in Aries.]

* * * * * * *

From the lowest aspect of Turiya (the Vaishvanara in Turiya) there arises the highest state of Prajna. In other words, we are working with four (Sephirotic) trees, four sets of 10's (for the four quadrants).

The Head seems to correlate the Ideas with the 10 unmanifest Sephiroth -- that is called the Intellectual-Principle -- that whole ordering of the contents.

* * * * * * *

Anthony thinks the scheme of the Intelligibles is like:

[FIGURE 1982 0503a-3. Head, Jupiter, Saturn. Computer generated by NT from AD Supp, p. 1217.]

Space turns out to be the most mysterious of all things. In Paracelsus (Hartmann, p. 50) he insisted that the matter is the Parabrahman of the Vedantists.

* * * * * * *

II.4.5, p. 108 -- "…this motion, this cleavage, away from The First is indetermination (=Matter)… It is from the First that all light comes…"

"Needing the First to its determination" is the same as in the Schaya article "united by the supernal".

* * * * * * *

Keeping this in mind, when speaking of the Intellectual-Principle we take Mercury Head Jupiter and insert them into Saturn. "This base of the Intellectual Realm possesses…" the solution of the question.

* * * * * * *

This is another explanation of [sic] instead of deriving the Intellectual-Principle from Number or Being, we derive it from the Saturn. There is a comment in the Hartmann Boehme that Boehme says everything is derived from Saturn.

The point here is that, if we're taking the progression of the many from the One, if Number is organizing the Intelligibles out of which eventually arises the Intellectual-Principle it is through the medium of this matter.

* * * * * * *

II.5.5, p. 122 -- We are now discussing each of the Intelligibles as a distinct view of the One (or the Intellectual-Principle), or a combination of these Intelligibles as Life, Being, Intellection, Matter (in this quote). You have authentic Being, but also authentic non-Being.

It was suggested that the above goes in the chapter on the One.

* * * * * * *

The easiest approach to the understanding of the Intellectual-Principle -- the only way -- is through Number, or through enumerating the various aspects of the Third House.

* * * * * * *

VI.1.12 -- The manifestation of the 36 Tattvas, therefore, has to be through that Consciousness. The Intellectual-Principle brings out all these Ideas that are not potential in the One, but the potential in the One, as the Saturn in Aries.

* * * * * * *

P. 386 -- Carol has these quotes on unity and duality, back to the paper, still following V.3.11.

* * * * * * *

As an example: take the sign or substance of Libra, the 36 Tattvas as the Idea. The substance of Libra, which is the Idea of the 36 Tattvas, is constituted basically by the Taijasa substance -- that Idea is essentialized or manifested through the Intelligible which we refer to as Venus. The substance of Libra is the Idea, the Intelligibles in Libra are functioning to manifest that.

If a unity and duality did not exist, on the one hand, the Ideas in being manifested by the dignities, the dignities cause the Intellection to take place.

The One is the Intellectual object. What is knows is the Idea, and the act of knowing is the Intelligibles. Through the function of knowing, which is the Venus, what is to be known?

Venus in a sign manifests something of the sign, but also something of the sign manifests Venus. The activity of the Intelligibles is manifesting the sign, the content, when at the same time the content of the sign becomes the content of their function.

Insofar as Venus manifests the Idea, to reverse that, is Libra manifesting Venus? Showing the peculiarity of that kind of functioning, Venus manifests Libra, and Libra manifests Venus here in a unity and duality. If we apply this to all of the Ideas, then we have an Idea of the Intellectual-Principle.

Venus is essentializing this Idea by incorporating it through Life. …And the Life of the Venus principle is getting essentialized through the function.

If you have the unity of the seventh Number or the seventh principle, Venus is what's essentializing that. Without the Venus there's no Idea. Through the Venus function it is bringing that unity into being. This is the Being and this is the Knowing. The Being is the Idea and the Knowing is the Venus.

*You can't have Being without Knowing, nor Knowing without Being. The same is true in the individual chart.

The identity of Being and Knowing can easily be demonstrated by referring to the Life aspect of the Idea as the Venus or the Intelligible function. A Being is understood as the Intelligible function of that.

On the other hand, Knowing must be supported by Being, and incorporated in Being. This hangs on our bringing in the Prajna Consciousness as the unifying ground.

The unity of Venus, through manifesting the sign of Libra, the Life of Venus gets distinguished out under the Venus unity or substance. This unity is also the seventh principle which gets essentialized through the Venus function. In this way the Venus function establishes the Idea as an essentialized Being and the substance of the Idea establishes the unity of Venus as an essentialized function.

Knowing and Being is an example of unity and duality. The function is establishing the substance in Being, and the substance is establishing the substance [sic; function] in Being. Prior to that they're both unities. This is the way the monads are suspended from the unities -- the one establishes the other.

Insofar in the way that Libra singularizes the Venus in Libra as the Life of Libra, the Venus is suspended under the unity of the Venus in Aries. When we say Being-Life-Intellect-Soul-Nature-Body of Venus it is the Idea that singularizes it as a monad, in speaking of participation.

[AD Supp, pp. 1214-1220 Ends]