Friday, February 11th, 1983

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

FEBRUARY 11, 1983

PLOTINUS: MENTALISM

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Mentalism

SUBSUBJECTS: IV.6.1, 2, PB, Epistemology, Twelfth House Levels, Belief and Imagination, Cosmic Mind and Individual Mind, Soul's Act, Perception, Witness-I

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: IV.6.1, IV.6.2

DIAGRAM embedded in these notes:

• FIGURE 1983 0211-1-AB. Divided Line (Lower Half).

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (hence V08). From Classnotes AB 1983 0206 to 1983 0228.PDF.

• All capitalization and punctuation corrected, all abbreviations spelled out.

1983 02/11 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus: Mentalism

[Classnotes AB 1983 0211 Begin]

2/11/83 Plotinus - Mentalism

Question -- How to explain mentalism à la PB from within Plotinus' framework.

Can you subsume the soul within mentalism? -- i.e., the soul manifests ideas, but is it itself ideal?

The soul or life = the activity of mind or ideas in the mind (Intellectual-Principle).

12th house

degrees = ideas

planets = activity of ideas

sublunar = manifestation of ideas

The undivided mind (functioning of the planetary spheres to manifest the ideas) fabricates the sensible world which is a thought.

Thought is first = fabrication of planetary spheres.

World-Idea received from within = degrees.

Relation between cosmic soul (Sun) and individual mind -- world is given to the individual mind -- how does individual mind imagine concurrent with or subsequent to the cosmic mind.

Belief = subtle idea of Sun is given to individual mind in heart.

Imagination = idea exfoliated by brain consciousness into subject-object experience.

[FIGURE 1983 0211-1-AB. Divided Line (Lower Half). Imag = Imagination. Facsimile scan from AB class notes.]

Senses are imprinted by object = mind impressed from within.

pp. 338-9, 4.6.1 [Note: Plotinus, Enneads. Page numbers vary with edition.] -- Mind experiences the object where the object is -- i.e., mind and its object are not separate. Perception is immediate. The subject who is perceiving is the Witness-I, i.e., the subtle, not physical senses.

PB's Witness-I = mind experiencing the object.

Sight = sense-perception = perception of sense.

The form and the eye that sees it are two ends of a stick known (seen) by the subject-consciousness (Witness-I) which is different from either. The subject-object relation is objective to the apperceptive unity of the ego (Witness-I) which goes out to (attacks) the object.

The object you see with its attributes are mental in both Plotinus and PB.

Memory is the traces of the mind's own functioning (power, vasana), not an imprint.

'Outward' is not outward from the body but outward from the mind, i.e., the mind's externalization is the object (body - object).

The mind cannot extravert and not mentally construct.

Unless the mind externalizes the world is has received, it won't externalize [sic; experience] it.

4.6.2 -- there is no prakritic entity which forces itself onto your mind.

The mind affirms (believes) that there is something external to it -- this is its power, or affirms something not within it, i.e., is within the Intellectual-Principle -- not soul, but soul's act externalizes it.

For mind read soul.

The soul's act is a production and it knows its production.

The soul doesn't make an impression of the ideas coming into it, it acts on them.

To understand Plotinus, you have to take the view of the subject as soul (Witness-I), not empirical.

Jupiter in Pisces is the most of the One that we can know.

[Classnotes AB 1983 0211 End]