Friday, January 6th, 1984

Deliberate Repetition: Cosmic Epistemology; Soul as Double Knower

by Anthony J. Damiani

Paper V09MP

3-LETTER CODE: ASN

TOPIC: Astronoesis

SUBJECT: Soul

SUBSUBJECTS: Plotinus, Faculty of Understanding, Solar Logos, World-Idea, Cosmology, Epistemology

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): ASN MASTER SOUL 21-55.PDF (formerly ASN MASTER SOUL 21-40.PDF) (pp. 46-48); 1984 0106a V12ap. Plotinus - Soul.DOC & PDF

CONTENTS:

Deliberate repetition of the intertwining of cosmology and epistemology

Cosmic soul instigates development of faculty of understanding

Individual soul conjoined to Solar Logos manifests World-Idea

Primal image is object of knowledge for soul incarnating here

360 degrees/gods are stuff of psychosomatic organism used as vehicle by individual soul; soul as receptacle of the gods

Undivided mind organizes 360 degrees into bodies

Soul imparts ray of light to organized body which appropriates it as its own

Partial consciousness streaming out through organism gives rise to image of the world = lowest level of divided line

Body as medium and agent

Mercurius as double knower; your Overself conjoined with asmita phase of Solar Logos

Solar Logos receives aura from Nous, transforms it into World-Idea; gives individual unit souls determinate being

Three levels of World-Idea corresponding to three levels of faculty of understanding: intellection, reasoning, sense

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

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

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: I.1.8, II.9.18, III.4.6, IV.3.10, IV.3.31, V.3.4, VI.4.4

AD HANDWRITING: Typewriter typed, a few AD and AS edits

COMPLETENESS: Almost full paper, seems to be missing something at the end

PUBLISHABILITY: Possibly, but first half already published in Astronoesis

ALTERNATE VERSIONS: The first part of this paper is found in ASN MASTER SOUL 21-55.PDF (formerly ASN MASTER SOUL 21-40.PDF) (pp. 46-49). The second part of the paper, and the rest of the class, is summarized in AD Supplementary Material, pp. 983-986. There is also a partial transcript for this class, Scan File 1984 0106P1-04R02.PDF, where both parts of the paper and comments on it can be found undistinguished. Both partials have diagrams.

DATE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: 1984 0106

VERSION OF PAPER IN ASTRONOESIS: The first half of this paper is found in "Deliberate Repetition: Cosmic Epistemology" (pp. 232-234). The second half is not in Astronoesis.

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2023

NOTES:

• RETYPED AD PAPER presented in class (V09MP).

• This is 1984 01/06b = Deliberate Repetition: Cosmic Epistemology; Soul as Double Knower Paper, and the second entry associated with this date. 1984 01/06a = Plotinus; Soul Class.

• This paper was read and discussed in WG Class 1984 0106a Plotinus; Soul and in several other classes during the time period of Jan-Feb 1984.

• A couple of words in brackets added for clarity.

Deliberate Repetition: cosmic epistemology; soul as Double Knower

[File ASN MASTER SOUL 21-55.PDF (formerly ASN MASTER SOUL 21-40.PDF) Begins (pp. 46-48)]

[Paper read 1-6-84] [Note: This is student handwriting at top of page.]

Deliberate repetition and further amplification is necessary to emphasize the intertwining of cosmology and epistemology which Plotinus has as a backdrop for the acquisition of knowledge by the human soul in the sensible world. The manifestation of the world idea is the object of knowledge to the inhabitants of that world and the interlocking of the various levels of reality within the structure of that manifestation is an infinitely complex situation that requires to be mentioned here. For the human soul which identifyingly inhabits a body fabricated by the planetary mind which is manifesting its world according to the solar logos, which in turn is one of those principles of intellectuality among others, and situated within the ground plan or sketch of the universe which is provided by the Universal Soul is the context within which we must place the object of knowledge. Now at this point we place the human soul which seeks to gain experience of this sensible world or the sublunary sphere.

It was a tradition among the Platonists that the birth or generation of souls took place in a star (such as our own). [Note: See Plotinus, III.4.6.] The powers of a cosmic Soul instigated the unit of being-consciousness to develop its faculty of understanding by providing the necessary environment within which its potential powers were evolved. For Plotinus the unit soul or mind was a double knower, that is, it had self-cognition, undifferentiated being-consciousness, which included cognition of its source or origin. [Note: See Plotinus, I.1.8, IV.3.10, IV.3.31, V.3.4.] The lower knower or secondary phase that is the faculty of understanding and reasoning would evolve by its journey through the cosmic circuit which provided the circumstances, situations, and events that would educe its potential and make it actual through experience.

In other words, the evolving world idea of our Solar Logos, our Sun, in its totality, is the stage upon which the soul's unfoldment occurred, the womb within which the gestation and birth of the sage is finalized. Now the individual soul, whose selfhood is similar to the soul of our Sun and conjoined to its "elder sister", [Note: See Plotinus, II.9.18.] is the principle of our being--an eternal authentic existence--which manifests the world idea and simultaneously includes the knowledge coordinate with the various levels of being contained in that world idea. To the contemporary mentality this is a superstitious myth invented by the overactive and heated imagination of our frightened forefathers. For the achieved sage these silent and detached intuitions are self-validating and authentic instances of a growing body of knowledge which has been deposited as an esoteric tradition or a "metaphysics of truth."

We must return to the specifics involved in order to complete our short synopsis of heavenly wisdom. Neither allusions or innuendos can be substituted for definitive working principles. The sly remarks and one-liners by many of our contemporaries that imply a greater hidden knowledge on their part has been frustrating and found wanting. We for our part must be bold and make explicit these principles necessary for spiritual growth and deny the hostility and negation inherent in their attitude.

The object of knowledge for the soul incarnating here is the world ideogram which is given to an individual mind. This original world-thought is transparently lucid and subtle and a constantly metamorphizing logical unity or whole of its own intellectuality or the ideas which are the same as the 360 degrees. It is these ideas or gods of the planetary mind that are the very substance or stuff included in the organization of the psychosomatic organism and the vehicles used by souls to understand the world idea. Thus the soul is a receptacle of the gods. Now the powers of the undivided mind of the earth which is symbolized by the Chaldean planets and represented by our instinctual functioning organize those ideas into specific and adventitious unities--i.e., psychosomatic organisms. This combination of function and substance is an ever-ongoing process that results in the creation of the world idea [and] includes entities that we may refer to as an organization of the earth's memories into the imagination. Now it is through this very medium, the organization of the earth's memories into a functioning entity, [that] is imparted a ray of light or mind by the individual soul, or we may say that this entity or intruder captures that light from a soul and appropriates it as its own. This partial consciousness streaming out through the organism gives rise to an appearance, the image of the world, within which it finds itself situated and it is these images in their totality that will constitute the lowest level of knowledge as for instance in Plato's divided line. So we must bear in mind that these bodies are the medium through which a soul becomes sensitive to the sensible world -- but these bodies are at the same time agents of the powers that are continuously being organized by the planetary powers.

[File ASN MASTER SOUL 21-55.PDF (formerly ASN MASTER SOUL 21-40.PDF) Ends (pp. 46-48)]

[Paper as read by AS in WG Class 1984 0106a Begins]

The background that we have to keep in mind is the original distinction we made between the Absolute Soul and its emanant, or this third phase or Mercurial phase. This Mercury itself has a double aspect. It is both pure being of soul, contemplation, and is determined being when it exercises its power of understanding in grasping the world idea.

This unit soul itself, in its higher aspect, is what Plotinus calls the higher knower or the higher self-knower, and is a pure unit soul. As such, we can equate it with a pure being and infinite consciousness, Authentic Existent, Overself, and as such we can speak of it as having insight. This emanant, this unit soul, knows its prior, it knows the Nous.

In its second aspect, or the second knower, we can talk about the unit soul as understanding or knowing its content of the world idea.

At this level of the Solar Logos, the whole of the I AM or Overself is conjoined to the whole of the Sun soul, pure "beings by the side of Being." (Plotinus, VI.4.4) The Solar Logos, or the World-Mind in PB's terminology, is the most immediate source to the unit soul of its world idea, which is going to be the content of its faculty of understanding and which will awaken and tutor the soul in its development.

The Solar Logos is also receiving this aura from the Nous, as it were, and in order for the Solar Logos to grasp this aura determinately, it transforms it into a world idea for itself according to its own intellectuality. In other words, it has an idea of the Nous which we can symbolize as the inerratic sphere. The world idea will provoke the individual unit souls out of their state of pure Being and give them some kind of determinate being. So, the Solar Logos awakens the individual souls to a recognition of their own faculties. The individual or unit souls receive the world idea most immediately from this Solar Logos through their own power of understanding.

The world idea itself has three levels correlating with the three levels of understanding of the soul which will be developed and this world idea is instructing the understanding of the individual soul. From the objective point of view or from the point of view of the World-Idea, the level of intellection corresponds roughly to the Sun soul's vision of the world idea, its transformation of its contemplation of the Nous. We can speak of this symbolically as the inerratic sphere, symbolized here by all of the star souls.

The second level of the world idea can be symbolized as the level of reason and this corresponds basically to the interpretation or understanding of this world idea by each planetary soul, and the deposit of all the reason-principles within that planetary soul.

The sensible level corresponds to the fabricated images through which each individual human soul, animal soul and so on, will experience the reasoning of the Earth soul in an imaginal way.

Corresponding to these three levels in the world idea, you have the three levels of understanding of any unit soul which is conjoined to the world idea. The world idea is evoking or provoking these various levels of understanding according to its own levels. Now, in the individual the highest one of these three corresponds to what we'd called in other places his spiritual subjectivity. This is the level where we can think of the unit soul as conjoined with the Solar Logos and experiencing a world idea according to the Solar Logos' own intellection of it.

[Paper as read by AS in WG Class 1984 0106a Ends]