Friday, July 1st, 1983

Soul as Double Knower

by Anthony J. Damiani

Paper V09MP

3-LETTER CODE: ASN

TOPIC: Astronoesis

SUBJECT: Soul

SUBSUBJECTS: Double Knower, Plotinus V.3.4

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): ASN MASTER SOUL 71-90.PDF (pp. 88-90), ASN MASTER SOUL 91-110.PDF (pp. 91-94)

CONTENTS:

Absolute Soul gives rise to individual souls; similar but not identical

Individual soul bears imprint of Intellectual-Principle as Intellectual Cosmos

Individual soul has two aspects, reasoning and insight

Manifests inerratic, planetary, sublunary within itself

Explanation of inerratic sphere

Cosmic soul's reasoning phase represented by planetary spheres

Human soul's faculty of perception imparted to body, world appears

Milky Way, solar system

Individual human soul conjoined with Sun soul at level of planetary spheres

Reasoning soul passes judgment on perceptions of sense faculty

Reasoning soul will develop to wisdom when it correlates reasoning to archetypal Ideas within itself

Recognition of presence of Ideas and identification with them; true Selfhood

Mystery of man made in the image of God

Handwritten add-in: self-knower is a double person; I AM knows the irradiating aura of the Nous

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: IV.8.4, V.3.1, V.3.2, V.3.4, V.3.8

DIAGRAMS embedded in this paper:

• FIGURE 1983 0701b-1. Double Knower Scheme.

• FIGURE 1983 0701b-2. Our Sun, a Cosmic Soul.

AD HANDWRITING: Typewriter typed, a few AD and student edits; last page add-in is handwritten by AS

COMPLETENESS: Full paper

PUBLISHABILITY: Possibly, though much similar to Astronoesis

DATE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: 1983 0701

VERSION OF PAPER IN ASTRONOESIS: Part of one paragraph published in Astronoesis, p. 245

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by JF, IT 2023/2024

NOTES:

• RETYPED AD PAPER presented in class (V09MP).

• This is 1983 07/01b = Soul as Double Knower Paper, and the second entry associated with this date. 1983 07/01a = Plotinus; Soul Class.

• This paper is read and discussed in WG Class 1983 0701a Plotinus; Soul.

• An edited version of this paper with additional AD commentary from the 1983 0701a class was considered for publication in From the Heart.

• In 2024, IT updates prefatory matter and footer, changes V-code to V09MP, changes file name, adds Plotinus quotes section, corrects typos/errors, adds new note within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions.

Soul as Double Knower

[File ASN MASTER SOUL 71-90.PDF Begins (pp. 88-90)]

Double Knower (older paper) [Note: Student handwriting at top of page.]

V.3.1, 8

Once we have understood the Soul as being of a two-fold nature or of a tripartite division, we can attempt to explain to ourselves what Plotinus means by referring to the self-knower as a double person. The highest phase of soul in the Nous--and the same as the Nous--is illuminated by the Intellectual Principle which Plotinus refers to "our King." This is Soul as Absolute. Then follows the engendered essence, a sequent emanated from it, a self-identical, undivided individual mind without beginning or end. This is what is referred to as the "lower" Soul. However although this Godlike entity is similar in nature to the Absolute Soul, it is not identical with it. Nonetheless it is an intellectual reality integrally omnipresent in everything that it will manifest. It may be called the lower phase of the Soul but it is our highest individuality and for the unphilosophic mystic is even thought of as God. It imparts something of itself to that which it manifests, so that it may also be considered as divisible among that which it manifests.

This principle, which he refers to as Reasoning Soul, he says, cannot be conceived as being unaware of its own understanding and that it bears within itself the Intellectual Cosmos as the imprint of the Intellectual Principle.

This principle has two aspects; it is the faculty of understanding, that is, it can reason upon that which is manifested within it and also it is aware that its own selfhood is derived from a higher source. He refers to this intellectual reality as a double person. We must explain to ourselves very clearly the implications thereof. [Figure 1983 0701b-1]

[FIGURE 1983 0701b-1. Double Knower Scheme. Facsimile scan from ASN MASTER SOUL 71-90.PDF, p. 89.]

The Saturn Jupiter refers to the Soul as Absolute and this is the same as Intellectual Principle. This is God or the Void. From this principle emanates the many Souls (Mercury) each an intellectual reality, boundless, timeless and eternal in its immutability. Nonetheless, he refers to this as the lower phase of the Soul, the principle of reasoning and discursive thought. This is not to be identified with a personality but more closely resembles the Vedantic notion of the Witness or let us say an impersonal consciousness. It manifests the World Idea which includes the starry host, the planetary spheres and the sublunary realm.

We have to explain more fully the meaning of the starry host. Each star represents the lower phase of a Cosmic Soul which is manifesting it. The highest phase is a principle of intellectuality which is manifested by its lowest phase, that which is divisible among bodies. For the Cosmic Souls, the distinction between its phases is more verbal than actual; the lowest phase of its Soul is transmitting and radiating this intellectuality within the Cosmos, through its body, the actual star. The totality of these stars or Souls constitutes a representation of the Nous as the inerratic sphere and this is included within the confines of the manifested universe of every individual Soul or mind. Thus our God or Ishvara is one of those stars, an Intellectual Principle in its own right, its highest phase in the Nous, the lower phase a principle of manifestation immediately transmitting the will of its higher phase producing and articulating its World Idea. Individual (human?) Souls are situated within that Cosmic Soul's manifested World Idea and what they will know of the entirety will be according to the way this Cosmic Soul elaborated its World Idea. We must remember that this is an elaboration of the inner realms of Being, that will be manifested by each individual Soul for itself and not a discussion of the appearance of the sensible world.

[File ASN MASTER SOUL 71-90.PDF Ends (pp. 88-90)]

[File ASN MASTER SOUL 91-110.PDF Begins (pp. 91-94)]

To continue, within the World Idea elaborated by a Cosmic Soul there is a representation of its reasoning phase by the planetary spheres. This, properly speaking, is the rational aspect of that Soul and its functioning is two-fold. As an agent it symbolizes the reasoning in the higher phase that unfolds the intellectuality of the higher phase but as a medium it provides the Reason-forms that will organize the elements into material species which are the bodies that the individual Souls will inhabit. Through that body will appear a World.

We can now speak of the lowest phase of the reasoning Soul of an individual human soul, that is, its faculty of perception imparted to the body and perceiving through the immoveable spectacles an apparent world with the planetary and inerratic spheres surrounding the sublunary realm. (and its reasoning and intellection)

Again, we repeat:

The vision proceeds to describe this cluster of stars we call the Milky Way; situated within that galaxy is our Sun. [Figure 1983 0701b-2, below] Surrounding our Sun are the planetary spheres which are representative of its rational understanding. The Sun's intellectuality is indicated by its relationship to the universe as a whole, whereas the rational powers are concerned with the relationship of all the parts within the solar system to one another and as a whole. [Note: "The vision proceeds. . . and as a whole" published in Astronoesis, p. 245.] It is at this level that individual human Souls are conjoined to their "elder sister soul." These powers of the Sun are evolving and unfolding the reason principles that result in the organization of the living organisms that will be inhabited by individual human Souls and through which they will gain experience of that world. So long as Souls are conjoined with the Rational phase all is well, Plotinus says, but if they descend further and inhabit body their preoccupation will be with that body and no longer with the whole. [Note: See Plotinus, IV.8.4.]

[FIGURE 1983 0701b-2. Our Sun, a Cosmic Soul. Facsimile scan from JF class notes.]

The highest phase of the lower Soul--the Augoeides or Star-like body--retains its Absoluteness, its intellectual reality as a unique undivided mind. Nonetheless it sends forth from itself that phase which is divisible about bodies. It is this principle which evolves through the experiences and finally succeeds in surrendering itself to its Source.

In this preface we have included all the necessary ingredients to understand Plotinus' statement that "the self knower is a double person." (Plotinus, V.3.4)

In V.3.2 Plotinus points out that the sense-principle in the Soul perceives the external which obviously includes the body and its modifications, i.e., an appearance. This faculty perceives the presentation which has been organized by its prior, but it is the reasoning phase of the Soul which takes cognizance of them. If we identify the reasoning Soul in our diagram with the planetary spheres, i.e., the actual transits, it is this principle which will pass judgment upon the perceptions of the sense faculty, that is, on the organized pictures that constitute the sense world. Only insofar as the reasoning Soul has gained experience and has become filled with reason (and this is the evolution of the ego), it has now gained a rationalized individual nature, and it can ascend and develop that wisdom. Plotinus goes on to say that the reasoning soul will develop to wisdom when it correlates the reasoning to the prototype or archetypal Ideas that it holds within itself.

This leads to the recognition of the presence of the Ideas or the Nous within itself. Repetitive and constant identification with these Ideas culminates in the appropriation and use of the Intellectual Principle within itself. This is its true Selfhood, i.e., that the I AM principle is an intellectual reality or a Logos. And this entails the necessary knowledge of its Source. It must be made clear that the similarity is not identity. This is the mystery of man made in the image of God, with its own unity, intellectuality and Soul.

[add-in, from p. S94 (handwritten--poor legibility; handwritten by AS--possibly from AD dictation, and p. S94 diagram here of Absolute Soul Saturn Jupiter with many Mercuries/stars]

The Cosmic Souls are (engaging/illegible) in the intellectuality of Nous in a particular way.

The self Knower is a double person.

There is the lower taking cognizance of the I AM or the Mind in virtue of which anything is known. To pursue this is to know That I Am to understand who I am.

As he says, we can scarcely suppose this lower phase of soul to be unaware of its awareness, to realize that it has its source in a higher and that it is the image of its higher. It affirms that is [sic; it] springs from the Nous but this it does still by a distinct power--by the very power through which it manifests and witnesses the world.

But this lower soul also can "know" himself by means of the Intellectual Principle. The Intellectual Principle shining in the I Am--radiating the I Am is its vision of the Ideas become one with it. The Intellectual phase of soul knowing itself in and through the I Am is the highest insight. This is knowledge by identity--an identity with what the I Am is. The I Am thus knows the irradiating aura of the Nous or that aura is revealing itself in the Soul.

[File ASN MASTER SOUL 91-110.PDF Ends (pp. 91-94)]