Thursday, July 21st, 1983

WISDOM'S GOLDENROD, JUNE FRITCHMAN SEMINAR NOTES (TYPED)

JULY 21, 1983

PLOTINUS; SOUL; OMNIPRESENCE

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Soul

SUBSUBJECT: Omnipresence

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: VI.4.1-8

TYPED by JF; REFORMATTED by IT 2024

NOTES:

• RETYPED HANDWRITTEN NOTES (V08.1). From JF Notes.

• In 2024, IT updates prefatory matter and footer, completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, fixes typos, adds note within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions.

• This seminar took place on a Thursday.

1983 07/21 SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Plotinus; Soul; Omnipresence

[JF Notes Begin]

[Note: All references to Plotinus, The Enneads.]

(VI.4.1-2)

The Soul does not have magnitude.

[The] Authentic All, Soul, Being is contained in nothing; the Overself is your All.

The sensible, material universe is contained in the omnipresence of the Soul, not in omnispace. Non-Being here is the appearance of the sensible world. Also the World-Idea cannot be fragmented but must participate entirely, so the World-Idea stays unbrokenly self-abiding and participates in the All, no piece of the World-Idea enters into the Soul.

He's going to show how the World-Idea enters into every Individual Soul/Overself, and how each Individual Soul (becomes) part of the World-Idea, but is distinct from the World-Idea.

The Soul = the All is present in every part of the World-Idea; "the thing" = World-Idea.

All Souls are contiguous with one another, [and because of] the authenticity of each Soul can't be torn apart.

You're not a partial Soul, because you're Soul (Being) entire, but the ego is non-Being.

Overself as self-abiding and universal. The universal moves completely within Soul; it doesn't have the ego outside it. Buddha: "not by walking do you reach the end of the universe."

(VI.4.3): Here there's the partial Soul theory "rays" or "Mercuries." Individual Souls = "beings whose unity does not reproduce."

When the Overself is present by means of Life in the entirety, it is integrally present in that ray, according to the capacity (of that ray/powers). The unity of the Overself is not broken up, is integrally omnipresent, even though it is broken up in its powers. The Overself is not the property of any power you may employ, i.e., the ego can't ever appropriate it. In this sense the body is the whole universe. The Overself is present in an individual entity through one of its powers. The Overself can be present through the immanence of its powers, these are the 7 powers. The Overself does not duplicate itself--so it can be present in what it manifests through its powers, and the Overself is integrally present through its powers.

Plotinus is trying to deprive you of thinking of it in material terms--the omnipresence of the Soul is no place

Intelligence = Life--if you take the Overself as a Unit of Life, you cannot fragment that Life.

(VI.4.4): Each one of these many Beings is omnipresent in terms of its own content...

How to explain the contiguity of individual Overselves. If the one-Overself has omnipresent identity, how could we explain the omnipresence of individual Overselves? Each Soul is omnipresent and the one-Soul is omnipresent.

Insofar as each emanant Overself is Being and manifests its own World-Idea (Proclus' and our view)... The Overselves are only numerically distinguishable from one another--Unity does not negate distinction.

The Souls/Minds are apart without partitions, etc.

That Mercury is incapable of being distributed--the body (World-Idea) comes into the Mercury Soul, not the Soul goes into it/body. (picture of Saturn-Jupiter-Mercury, with cosmos inside Mercury)

Within that Mercury principle, it can manifest Life, because of (omnipresence) everything in the world that you perceive is living--there is no such thing as inorganic--[it's] the whole of Life.

(VI.4.5): This is the greatness of your (Soul), you can't imagine or conceive where the soul might be. The universe can only take very little of its/Soul's own Life or power.

(VI.4.6): It seems there's the one-Soul; the difference is again on the side of content.

Up to this section, [he's] spoken of Individual Soul, from now on Plotinus is considering the Cosmic Soul. He uses "state" ["Because it is a judgment made, not a state set up"] here to refer to the actual modification/imprint of the bodily organism.

In some sense the lower Soul is also the same...

"Public knowledge" = the Cosmic Soul's knowledge--judgment or reason is yours, but not only yours; sense knowledge is particular, your knowledge.

(VI.4.7): One identical principle = your individual Overself.

Multiples = multiplicity of the World-Idea being manifested.

(VI.4.8): "When we affirm unity in multiplicity..."

"that unity remains true to itself, remains itself, and so long as it remains itself cannot fail within its own scope": [i.e.,] it can be participated.

Example: the entire tonal space of a [musical] scale, the chromatic scale includes all the notes, the total must be present for the note struck to make sense.

Example: The light of the Sun on a plant, the Sun does not get exhausted by the plant's photosynthesis.

[JF Notes End]