Friday, February 25th, 1983

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, ALAN BERKOWITZ CLASS NOTES

(TYPED)

FEBRUARY 25, 1983

PLOTINUS: EPISTEMOLOGY

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Epistemology

SUBSUBJECTS: III.8.6, Soul's Vision, Sage, Astrology

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.8.6, IV.4.1, IV.4.23, IV.4.27, IV.6.1, VI.7.3, VI.7.4, VI.7.5

TYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

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

• All capitalization, punctuation, and other mistakes corrected, all abbreviations and one number spelled out.

1983 02/25 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus: Epistemology

[Classnotes AB 1983 0225 Begin]

2/25/83 Plotinus Epistemology

3.8.6 [Note: Plotinus, Enneads. Page numbers vary with edition.] -- What the soul fails to perceive in the Intellectual-Principle it comes to through manifestation (circuit). Act of the soul is the externalization of its Idea which it then knows.

For Plotinus, to know your true self is to know the Ideas (not necessarily all of them).

For Vedanta, to know your true self is to know pure consciousness (cognitive-isness).

The selfhood of the soul (ultimate truth) is Intellectual-Principle or the One itself, known through insight. Prior to this is the truth of the Intellectual-Principle, i.e., knowledge of the Ideas.

The soul has to know and acquire what the Universal Soul has produced -- this is included in its eternal vision of the Nous.

When it has achieved the totality of the experience it wants to, it will bring something back into the Nous.

If everything is already contained or known within the Nous, why does the soul descend? It does not have a total vision to begin with.

The soul will always have a representation of itself in manifestation because the process is endless and infinite -- there is ever more for the Sage to know and learn.

The limits of our knowledge are not equal to the limits of universal knowledge.

It would take the cognitive-isness to know the limits of universal knowledge.

[This is the] distinction between what the soul as a (rational) hypostasis and its cognitive-isness can know.

What is the relationship of the soul's lower phase to its higher --

And what is the relationship of the soul's higher phase to the Ideas (Nous). 4.4.1 (p. 288)

Your chart is an indication of the Ideas you can't understand which will be hammered into you.

In 'heaven' the soul contemplates, here is it in action.

What grasps the meaning or knows (through the experience) is the higher soul.

We can still know truth (Ideas) without the total knowledge of the cognitive-isness.

The soul has a lack -- within the Universal Soul there is a wisdom which defies it. Thus the Universal Soul is the womb of the Buddha -- within it is the knowledge and experience to become a Buddha.

"The reason-principle (degree in your chart) must not be left outside…" [Note: Plotinus, 3.8.6, seventh para.]

The degrees which your planets are on are ideas which will be assimilated by your soul through the agony of experience. Then they become our own -- what the soul acquires through the circuit it now has as its vision.

The vision of a Sage is intent on grasping (inwardly) the Ideas in the Intelligible even if it is done by seeing them in the world.

3.8.6 (pp. 234-4) gives you the context within which to place epistemology

6.7.3 (p. 562)

6.7.5 (p. 564)

1) Man of the realm of birth = natal chart

2) Man containing reason-principles = transits

3) Highest Man = trans-Saturnians

6.7.4, 5

1) Highest (3) doesn't leave Intellectual-Principle, but has contact with the lowest (1) through the link of the reason-principles (2). Trans-Saturnian aspects brighten up the ego (3).

4.4.27 (p. 307) Knowledge of the fixed stars is correlated to/corresponding with the knowledge below it. Fixed stars are the sense organs of the All-Soul.

Trans-Saturnians were the superconscious.

Aspects of trans-Saturnians to Chaldeans illuminate them.

4.6.1 (p. 338)

4.4.23 (p. 305)

The mind can have sense perception from 1) the Witness position perceiving the whole image, or 2) the body/ego perspective within the image.

The whole perceived image (primal image) is the animate or intermediate.

The 'intermediate' is not between two things.

Real sense-perception is #1 -- the Witness-I perceiving its activity -- the image.

[Classnotes AB 1983 0225 End]