This series covers events from 03/12/1982 - 08/20/1982

In this extraordinary series, Anthony Damiani presents, develops, and explains the early drafts of the papers that eventually compose the chapter on the One in his posthumously published book Astronoesis. Some of the classes also focus on the role of superessential Number in the eternal generation or emanation of the Intellectual-Principle, which is the topic of the interlude on Number and the chapter on the Intellectual-Principle in Astronoesis.

He starts out with outlines for the chapters on the One and the Intellectual-Principle. Over time, the outline for the chapter on the One becomes more detailed as quotes from Plotinus and others are added and commented on, and eventually a complete draft of the chapter starts to take shape. At the outset, Damiani is at pains to convey that contrary to what we might expect, the One, the absolute first principle, is not simple like a spatial point but incomprehensibly complex, and yet this complexity does not make it into a plurality or make it lose its integrity. He constantly emphasizes that in our thinking about the One, we must always keep the One intact: it must not become pluralized or diminished, even when lesser realities are emanated from it. The One is absolute positivity and an eternal superknowledge. The One is total affirmation or metaphysical infinity, and the unity of everything is paradigmatically included in its superknowledge.

Next Damiani shows that the power of the One is the same as the indeterminate Dyad, which is not something apart from the One. This power is both with the One and extends from the One. This power is real and not different from the One else either Being would be illusory (the product of an unreal power), or there would be a metaphysical duality of the One and Being (if the power were real but other than the One). The power of the One is also the matter, or substratum, of all the superessential unities, and the interaction of the One and the Dyad establishes each aspect of metaphysical infinity.

Using the symbolism of the astrological mandala (i.e., the metaphysical chart) developed in prior classes, Damiani represents these ten aspects by the ten dignities in the first quadrant of the circle of twelve houses. Once we have conceived and itemized these ten aspects, we reflect that this is not something going on temporally or causally—this has always been totally achieved. We then “forget” that there was ever any ordering, any completion, any act within the One; all that gets canceled out and we are left with the fullness of the One’s integrity.

Damiani also develops an original understanding of the double act in the One. Using Plato’s statement from the Philebus that the One “exhibits infinity and bound,” Plotinus’s description of the double act in the One from V.4.2, and the passage from VI.8.16 that the One’s self-tendance is at once act and repose, Damiani shows that the double act must first be found in the One before there can be any understanding of emanation or something issuing from the One.

Then, applying the astrological principle that when a planet transits a house, it manifest the contents of that house, he represents the double act of the One in several different ways: The first house can represent passive perfection (repose) and the four dignities in the first house manifest that as active perfection (act). Or the first house can represent passive perfection and the second and third house manifest that as active perfection—the Platonic principles of infinity and bound. Or each dignity in the first house can represent repose and the two dignities in the same ring in houses two and three can represent act; e.g., Mars in rulership in Aries represents repose and Venus in rulership in Taurus and Mercury in rulership in Gemini represent act.

According to Damiani, the issuing act described in V.4.2 is the same as the completing act of the One described in VI.7.40, which he also calls “The Triad” (represented astrologically as the first quadrant with its ten dignities); nothing has gone forth. All the monads of Being, Life, Intellect, Soul, Nature, and Body emanate from the Triad while the One remains intact, thus emanation preserves the integrity of the One.

Finally, Damiani argues that there’s not really an ontological hiatus between the One and the emanants, rather there is continuity, but the emanants have a lesser degree of reality than the One. If we don’t grasp this, we end up with a one-many instead of the transcendent One. The Head in Gemini represents superessential Number, which coordinates the substance and function of the Intellectual-Principle (symbolized by the twelve signs and their rulerships). The lesser reality of the All takes place within the Body of God, or Saturn in Aries.

Those who attended these classes witnessed in Damiani a spiritual genius bringing forth the depths of meaning he found in Plotinus’s writings on the One, meanings charged with, and vivified by, the power of Damiani’s own profound visionary experience. As he spoke in hushed tones about the One, the silent presence he evoked left an unforgettable impression on his auditors. Damiani said in one of these classes, “So if we . . . wish to glimpse the incomprehensible nature of the One, our intellect must be like a bird which in flying through the sky leaves no trace behind, that is, dissolved in stillness. Now we have to do something similar to that. We have to think very intensely about what the nature of the One is. But do not think that the discussions we have on Fridays are pointless. It is the only important thing you could discuss ever in your life, at any time, any place, anywhere; there's nothing more important. So it’s not a waste of time, and it’s not just anxiety and frustration; it’s quite meaningful.”

Classes and documents available in this series