it is often said that all of quote-unquote Western thought is simply footnotes to Plato and this is both of course somewhat hyperbolical and at the same time cannot chew but the man himself can't of course take all the credit because indeed there have been few schools of thought as influential on our world on the some of the greatest religions and thinkers in history as the philosophical School of neoplatonism appearing in late Antiquity as a continuation of the school of platonism neoplatonism would come to play a decisive role in the philosophy and Theology of Christianity Islam Judaism and really all of Western thought as we sometimes call it indeed the category that we often call mysticism is almost entirely based in its language and and symbolism on the school called neoplatonism it's a topic that has come up a lot in our previous discussions in previous episodes on this channel and will continue to do so in the future so I think it's high time that we ask ourselves the question what actually is neoplatonism [Music] I'm very happy and honored to say that this episode is part of a large collaborative project with some of my friends and colleagues here on YouTube some truly amazing people and Scholars that are making some incredible content this collaboration includes zevi from Seekers of unity who will be covering neoplatonism and its relationship with Kabbalah both the origins of Kabbalah in terms of how neoplatonism plays a role there as well as the periods of medieval times and the Renaissance Dr Justin Sledge from the channel esoterica will be covering neoplatonism and its relationship with gnosticism Dr Angela Pucca from Angela's Symposium will be covering platinus and eamblicus two of the most Central figures in early neoplatonism and their views on Magic in particular we also have Dana trell who'll be covering Thomas Taylor's platonist Creed an incredibly interesting text and lastly we also have John verveiki who will be making an episode covering neoplatonism and its relationship with cognitive science so this is a massive large collaborative project that all are sort of trying to get at the topic of neoplatonism from different angles and in relationship with different Traditions from now from around the world so be sure to check out the episodes by all these other amazing people and you'll get a wide and and comprehensive understanding of neoplatonism from different perspectives which I think is really valuable neoplatonism is one of the most influential philosophical movements ever and the clues to its place in intellectual history are right there in the name neoplatonism it is in other words a form of platonism the tradition that follows and builds on the teachings of Plato and this is an important Point platonism can be a broad category and we often divide it into periods and schools like middle platonism and indeed neoplatonism or late platonism but we should remember that they are all parts of a single Tradition at least in a sense according to these philosophers themselves they all saw themselves as simply adhering to when clarifying the teachings of their Master Plato the word neoplatonism is therefore often seen as somewhat problematic by Scholars it's not a word used by its adherence so you'll never hear the ancient new platonists call themselves neoplatonists but this is rather a modern anachronistic term used by Scholars and historians the term Neo means new which seems to indicate that this was a new philosophy but to the neoplatonists there was nothing new about it it was simply the true interpretation of the ancient platonic teachings therefore many scholars as well as myself to some degree often prefer to use other terms like late platonism to refer to this movement in order to highlight that it was not some new separate thing but a late stage of development for the platonic school of thought and also to some of the girls for a late stage of development for all of Greek and Hellenic philosophy in general furthermore we should probably not look at neoplatonism as a school at all because that's 2 is a modern academic construct many of the thinkers we categorize as neoplatonist can differ in dramatic ways as we will see so we should keep in mind that this is a general term used to denote a late stage Pagan platonism which has certain characteristic features that unify it but which also can be incredibly diverse and complicated in any case it's clear that neoplatonism was very Innovative and has features that set it apart from earlier representatives of platonism in general so with that said what is it then that makes neoplatonism neoplatonism well the movement or School basically originated in the third Century with an amazing figure called platinus he is usually described as the quote-unquote founder of neoplatonism and many of its characteristic teachings can be traced to him even though he would say that he actually takes them directly from Plato of course platinus is one of the most fascinating incredible and indeed influential philosophers of all time and to understand neoplatonism we kind of need to understand him even though the school was further developed and associated with successive figures like porphry iamblicus and proclus plutanus is kind of the man in this case so it serves as well to explore him a bit more in depth platinus lived in the third Century as I mentioned he was from Alexandria in Egypt originally but was deeply hellenized and spent most of his career as as a philosopher in the city of Rome he was well respected and famous during his lifetime and we know of his ideas and teachings primarily through his writings a collection of treatises compiled by his student portfrey known as the eniads and will return to this work later but this is important because basically all we know about platinus is life comes from a short biography that porphy included as a kind of prologue to the iniads and which is called simply on the life of platinus in other words it is the story of plutonis's life as viewed from one of his own students but despite its brevity this account contains some truly amazing details as I already mentioned he was born in Egypt around the year 204 and grew up in the city of Alexandria in particular porfree tells us that platinus was very secretive about his background and disliked talking about it so we don't really know much at all about his early years but sometime in his late 20s he became interested in philosophy and started studying in Alexandria under a teacher called ammonius sakas porfree tells us that patina studied under ammonius with two other students arenius and origen and you may recognize that later name because it is the name of one of the most famous early Christian philosophers and theologians he was also from Alexandria and so both the name the time and the place seem to suggest that this might be the same guy in other words platinus and the famous origin might have been School buddies although the scholars continue to disagree about his true identity many believe that there may have been two Origins and that this is simply a coincidence that this name shows up here in the life of plutonus as well in any case porphy also tells us that all the students of ammonias were forced to promise never to reveal his teachings to others a promise that none of them seems to have kept because after traveling around the Mediterranean world for a while platana settled in the city of Rome when he was around 40 years old and quickly became famous as a great philosopher that attracted many students he really became the philosopher of the third century and especially an authority on Plato and platonism no one could explain Plato better than platinus and he was the preeminent scholar of platony's Doctrine in the world at the time he certainly seems to have been a very charismatic figure judging from these stories about his life in some ways he adopted a kind of semi-pythagorean Lifestyle for example by living a rather ascetic life not eating very much and following a strictly vegetarian diet people from all walks of life from Senators to people of the lower classes both men and women would attend his lectures and hold them in great regard and there was a kind of inner circle of close students which included porphyrie who wrote this biography there are incredible stories about patanus's supposed spiritual powers and Status he of course lived in a world that was entirely dominated by the classical religion of a Greece and Rome and he seems to have respected that religion to some degree because we don't find any evidence in his writings that he was at all openly critical to the cult but at the same time he seems to have seen himself as being somewhat above those kinds of things what he was doing was philosophy right exploring the higher noetic realities and not these relatively lower practices associated with religion in one of the more dramatic and striking parts of porphy's biography he tells us of one time when platina said something that was quite shocking to the people around him quote emilius was fond of sacrifices and used to busy himself with rights of the new moon and rights to La fears he once tried to get titanus to participate with him but platina said they must come to me not I to them we do not know what consideration led him to make such a grand pronouncement and did not have the nerve to ask him as we can see from this quote even portray himself and the rest of the crew seemed quite shocked by this seemingly Empire statement saying that the gods of the religious Pantheon should come to him rather than the other way around to the point that they didn't have the nerve to inquire about it anymore another story tells of how another philosopher Olympus of Alexandria was jealous of platinus and wanted to use magic to basically cast a spell and attack him but once he did he realized that platinus's Soul was so powerful that all the attacks simply deflected back onto Olympus himself forcing him to give up the Tinus had cultivated his soul and noetic Consciousness so much that it was a force to be reckoned with lastly we can't recount patanus's life without mentioning the story about the summoning of his Guardian Diamond porphy tells us that there was an Egyptian priest that came to visit Rome and wanted to demonstrate his powers by inviting platinus so that he could summon his protective Diamond so at this time it was believed that each person had a protective diamond and intermediary Spirit between humans and gods and this priest from Egypt could supposedly summon these diamonds for free recount the event thus quotes platinus readily agreed and the invocation took place in the temple of Isis since the Egyptians said that this was the only pure place he could find in Rome when he called upon the titanus's diamond to appear it was a God that came rather than a member of the genus of diamonds as the Egyptians said you are blessed since you have a God as your diamond and are not accompanied by a member of the lower genus in any case the fact that patinas was accompanied by a diamond of superior Divinity led him to raise his god-like vision towards it this is why he wrote the book on our allotted diamond in which he tries to explain why different people have different Guardians again we see here an example of titanus's impressive spiritual Powers his personal Diamond was not just some old regular Diamond but an actual God but despite these very lofty details he was also just a guy and is described as being very pleasant kind and caring as an individual indeed many people especially those who were about to die wouldn't trust their children to his care and his house was quote filled with boys and girls whom he looked after and cared for So Not only was he an incredibly well-respected philosopher but also kind of a well-respected person in general in his Society perhaps unsurprisingly given the fact that our information comes from a devoted disciple he's also described as rather Pleasant to look at we do have depictions of platinus even though he personally refused to be painted or sculpted saying quote isn't it enough that I have to carry around the image that nature is clothed me with like a true platonist he believed that everything in the visible world including our bodies are only imperfect images or copies or reflections of the perfect world of forms in the news so to paint an image or make a sculpture of him would be to paint an even more imperfect image of an already imperfect image and he wasn't about that porphy tells us that they cheated though and got a famous painter and sculptor to attend to tennis lectures and memorize his looks so that he could later recreate it thus we have depictions that are supposedly pretty close to real life platanus sadly was sick for a lot of his life having a lot of problems with his bowels and became Afflicted with nasty throat infections which in the year 270 when he was 66 years old finally resulted in his passing the greatest philosopher of his day and one of the most significant thinkers in world history breathed his last with the words quote try to elevate the God within us to the Divine in the universe titanus's Legacy is incredibly vast and we are lucky that basically all of his philosophical writings survive and after his death our friend porphry decided to take all of those treatises and compile them into a single albeit incredibly messy collection still a magnificent work of philosophy which became known as the any ads any AD means a group of nine and the work essentially consists of 54 treatises divided into six any ads that is six groups of nine treatises each Division and structure is entirely by porphyry and is really weird it divides single treatises into many and has a pretty confusing outline based on a loose kind of thematic structure nonetheless this work would come to play a major role in the history of philosophy and religion sometimes under other names and in misattributed forms which we'll touch on in future episodes but it is in these any ads that we find the teachings of platinus and therefore also the foundational ideas of late platonism or neoplatonism so what is this guy all about well it's worth pointing out once again that patina simply sees himself as clarifying and explicating the teachings of Plato so the contents of his neoplatonic philosophy is based strongly on the platonic dialogues and incorporates many of the characteristic thoughts of Plato such as the world of forms for example he seems especially interested and influenced by some specific dialogue such as for example the Parmenides where we get ideas about the one and which is often seen as Plato's most mature and complex metaphysical dialogue and also very importantly for those of you who know your Plato you'll know that he had quite an esoteric side and that he famously dissed the whole project of writing Philosophy for this reason there is often talk about Plato's so-called Unwritten doctrines those ideas that he never wrote down but which represents his true deepest ideas and this wasn't some later invention either as Aristotle himself one of Plato's students affirmed that these Unwritten doctrines were a thing and gibbs's hints as to what they were actually about without going too deeply into it we can say that it seemed like these secret true doctrines were strongly related to ideas associated with pythagoreanism such as a huge emphasis on the idea that the foundations of reality is based on a monad and a dyad a one and a successive two esoteric number metaphysics in other words and platina seems to be influenced and claims to represent and teach these Unwritten doctrines this is unsurprising when we consider the fact that the very core of his philosophy consists of the idea of the one which we'll get to soon so he bases his philosophy on Plato on his dialogues the unwritten doctrines and the platonic tradition that developed afterwards so platanus follows in a strong and flourishing tradition of wisdom which include not only platonism but also other schools such as stoicism he really was the philosopher of his day as we said and despite how much he wants to claim that he is simply relaying the teachings of Plato there is no denying that he was incredibly Innovative and original himself but this is why neoplatonism is such a significant school of thought and school of philosophy it's kind of the culmination of the whole project of Hellenic philosophy patanus takes inspiration from from the platonic tradition from Plato but also certain aspects from from Aristotle the peripatetic philosophy he also takes certain aspects of stoicism and it creates this incredible system if we can call that a system this incredible philosophy that we now know as neoplatonism it's it's really significant and really really important stuff it's really difficult to know where to begin when it comes to neoplatonism but in the most General Strokes we can say that it is a philosophy that conceives of different levels of reality these levels or real realities perhaps being referred to as hypotheses in the original Greek at the core of this entire system at the core of reality itself and it's you could say its highest level is the concept of the one tohen in Greek the one is completely Beyond any description or understanding it's beyond being it's beyond time and space it is one but it's also not one because calling it one is actually saying too much this is a radically apathetic principle something that lies completely beyond the light of human understanding and its Concepts but it is from this one and kind of also in this one that everything else unfolds we will return to the incredible way that platinus describes or perhaps undescribes the one in the enniads later but it is in short an utter Simplicity from which everything else emanates it's also identified with the platonic concept of the good and the Beautiful and these three terms are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to this one concept of the one now basically everything I say here is going to have to be nuanced and maybe even redacted later on but will begin with a simple overview from this one there is a kind of emanation something appears which is distinct from the one but is simultaneously kind of the same at the same time the one is so perfect that it overflows into something other than itself in a sense a perfect image of the one which is called the news is a word in Greek that is basically impossible to translate and I really mean that this time the most common translation is perhaps intellect but we also see other words or translations like mind sometimes Divine mind or Consciousness none of which really captures its full meaning so we're just going to be using the word news from here on out the news is the first principle after the one it's a kind of Consciousness in which knowledge about everything is contained the nose is still Beyond time and space so it is a mind that knows all things at the same time so to say and in a unified way all its knowledge is a single it's it's a single thing right it's not that it has knowledge of all these separate things in different times it has knowledge of everything but that knowledge is a completely unified knowledge of everything in a single Eternal instant you could say the news is one it's an utter Unity that is numerically singular perhaps even more properly called one than the actual one which is as we said even beyond the concept of Oneness it is the lower the known and the act of knowing all in one and everything is contained in the news in complete Unity it is this news that is the platonic world of forms that the archetype of the whole world but as a Unity Beyond temporality and distinction the news is being itself the news is even God now sometimes platinus will refer to the one as God but more often it is the news that represents the concept that we associate with God most of the time so to use more theological or theistic language than platinus himself would have been comfortable with the news is God and the forms are God's Own thoughts as he knows himself with a knowledge that is identical to himself this news not only contemplates itself but also looks back at the one and contemplates this one even though this is technically impossible and as a result of this there is then another emanation we move sort of further away from the one as there appears another lesser reality and this is the soul or piche in Greek the soul receives the information stored in the intellect and is sort of responsible for taking all that knowledge and making it into actual stuff just like the nose looks back at the one its originator the soul looks back at the nose its originator and contemplates it and as a result it emanates or creates the universe as we know it the world of Multiplicity the world of things of time and space which is often referred to as the world of nature it is here below the level of soul that everything we know and experience in the sensible world exist including our own individual Souls the sensible world is kind of the outer manifestation or imperfect copy of the perfect noose and its contents which is the world of forms everything we experience here exists in the news in a more perfect and unified Way Beyond temporality so this is a pretty neat and understandable system right it begins at the top with the one which emanates the news which emanates the soul which in turn emanates or creates the the physical world as we know it makes total sense right wrong in fact while the outline that I've just given is accurate in a sense it can also be very misleading and even lead to inaccurate understandings and interpretations of late platonist metaphysics for one thing this whole process of emanation takes place outside of time when we think of this process of being or becoming we see it as the one becoming the Noose becoming the soul but this implies a temporal progression which is not how it should be understood time doesn't exist except in the level below Seoul in our sensible universe so this whole process from the one to the nose to the soul is not something that happens quote unquote or even has happened it is a description of the way reality is in the Eternal non-temporal moment it recounts an essential structure within reality not an event it can be pretty trippy to wrap your head around but it is important not to conceive of this as a temporal thing of something happening in a in time and space secondly we describe this process as one thing kind of creating another and in our minds we often imagine these realities as being different or separated from each other in some way in a kind of hierarchy the one is way up here and the material world is somewhere down here and they are as far away from each other as they can be but this can also be very misleading while platinus does point out that there is a difference between the one and the news and the news and the soul and he's actually pretty strict about this and in one way and in certain passages they are also in some way part of a single reality forget this vertical image that I presented and instead imagine all of reality including these levels and the physical Universe unfolding within the Noose itself and ultimately within the one itself this is more of a monistic picture and the different levels are all a single reality or a kind of Continuum you could say perhaps a better image would be to see them as circles within each other but even that is a compromise because after all this process or these hypotheses can really be imagined in a kind of in in the sense of a kind of image or a representation really it is a metaphysical reality Beyond time and space we can't really imagine what it's like for example at least according to platinus the human self down here on Earth is not separated from the noetic world that is the world of the news or even from the one actually the individuals South is in the news right now and at all times we are all constantly participating in the news and even in the one we are the news and we are the one even if we don't realize it so you can see that this neat division into various levels or realities is very misleading because it is also a deeply integrated system where there is a distinct continuity between the lowest and highest aspects of reality it's all taking place within itself so to say and this is important for another reason namely that platinus's philosophy and really most of neoplatonism is very much performative and participatory in nature it's not just some abstract theoretical philosophy about the way that reality is structured but also involves the process by which the individual person can realize his true nature his true self by climbing up this ladder of existence back from this lower parts of the physical universe and the body all the way back up to the Noose on the human level patanus tells us that we are to turn away from our bodies matter is seen as evil in a sense but only in so far as it becomes an object of desire as opposed to the one or the good indeed to platinus the one is present even in matter itself and the physical world is a beautiful yet imperfect copy of the noetic world of forms so platanus's practical instructions involve a shift of focus from the bodily and material to the intellectual we are to detach ourselves from the desires of the physical and instead turn towards our higher self which has its home in the noetic world in other words this involves a kind of asceticism not an extreme one by any means but certainly a way of living that is tempered and controlled titanus himself seems to have lived a rather aesthetic life eating relatively little and when he did eat it was exclusively a vegetarian diet some neoplatanists have opted to live a life of sexual abstinence altogether but this was not something required or the norm really in general patanus tells us that we are to make the journey inward into the depths of our own selves and to again turn away from the bodily and contemplate our true noetic self and the higher realities how on does this on a more concrete level is hard to say some have speculated that platinus may have performed some sort of meditation practice and taught this kind of practice to students but this is uncertain and mostly speculation it seems pretty certain that it involves some sort of inward traveling might of traveling inwards into the soul and the depths of the self and through that sort of Ascend higher into the to the noetic and the intellectual worlds and when she does that she can realize her true home in the nurse and in a sense even become United with the news or more accurately to realize that she was The Noose the entire time further more platanus even seems to indicate that we can become mystically United with the one itself to experience a quote Flight of the alone to the alone or a solitary in the solitary as platina says himself in the very final words of the enyads you can perhaps see why many have chosen to call platanus a Mystic when we take all these aspects into account now words like Mystic and mysticism are of course debated and problematic in some way but I think it's important to recognize and consider this very participatory aspect of titanus's teachings and the teachings of neapolitanism because it is a very Central aspect of their philosophy like I said it's not only about the structure of reality in a theoretical sense but the human Journey back to her higher Essence a kind of spiritual self-realization and Ascent back to the source there's a bi-directional progression everything flows from the one and ultimately returns back to it like inhaling exhaling of breath this language and imagery has become some of the most influential and recurring in the history of the category of mysticism across various religions and spiritual Traditions ever since then this motion of flowing out and returning is a core feature of neoplatonism the human being's true home is in the news and this outer bodily form is only a fleeting temporary shell The World Isn't inherently negative though indeed platinus has a whole Treatise in the anions called against the gnostics where he basically tears this group of early Christians apart very basically they believe that the physical world was created by an evil demiurge or false queer God and that basically all of the world is a kind of negative prison and platanus did not agree with this idea he does not have as negative of a view of the physical world and of creation as such and so he dedicates this Treatise in the an ads to complete refuting the gnostics sometimes very harshly after all the world is a copy of the perfect news but in a kind of imperfect way remember the nose contains everything that is and ever will be in this world but in a non-temporal and perfect way we are experiencing that world in an imperfect way through the mediation of time and space and at the same time we also saw everything takes place in the news we are all in the news right now and having these experiences inside the noetic world this is a world view that is fundamentally different from the modern one most of us hold where we conceive of a real external world out there outside of our subjective Minds the neoplatonic view is sort of the other way around completely there isn't a real external World in which there are Minds the external world is in fact within mind within news or consciousness it's not that the external world isn't real at least as we commonly understand that phrase but simply that mind or news is the prior principle it is consciousness or news that is real and the external World unfolds within that Consciousness but there is still a kind of hierarchy right this physical world is less perfect than the world of the news and this is why platinus and the other neoplatonists put such an emphasis on leaving the body right of ascending back towards the higher world or I should say the higher aspect of the world or reality because like I said it's all a single Continuum in a sense now here is another good opportunity to stop and dispel some possible misunderstandings and sort of wrong ways of imagining this stuff when we say that the soul leaves the body and travels up into the higher noetic worlds one tendency to imagine this is to think of the Soul as sort of leaving the body and somehow sort of traveling up and to space or something all the way up there that is not how this should be understood this whole journey the Journey of the Soul into the higher realms all of it takes place inside oneself right it's a it's a journey inward not upward into some some Heavenly world right it's a it's a it's a journey inward into the depths of the Soul into the depths of the self because it is there inside ourselves in our true sort of essence our true core that is where the news and maybe even the one actually is so to say it is within us that this entire Cosmos exists from nature to Soul to news remember we are in the nose we are the nose so the entire nomadic reality including knowledge of all things and the whole of reality exist within the self there are depths to the South that very few people have any idea of and this journey of ascent is the process of realizing this aspect of yourself this is what time it refers to as the undescended soul or the undescended self that there is a true part of ourselves that is always in the news and never leaves it quote the fact is that even our own soul does not descend in its entirety but there is something of it always in the intelligible world however if that part which is in the sensible World becomes dominant or rather if it is dominated and subjected to disturbance it does not permit there to be self-awareness in us of that of which the upper part of the soul is in contemplation this idea of the undescended self is a Core teaching of platinus in particular but it should be pointed out that many later neoplatonists indeed some of the most prominent ones like ayamblicus and proclus all completely disagreed with him on this topic the doctrine of the understand itself was entirely rejected by a many later near platonists once One lets go of all feathers of physical body and existence and plunges into the depths of one's true self the human becomes United with the news platinus himself very famously describes the experience of this journey from the body and the bafflement of having actually returned from the non-temporal noetic experience of the absolute back to his regular old body and individual Consciousness he says quote often after waking up to myself from the body that is externalizing myself in relation to all other things while entering into myself I behold the beauty of wondrous quality and believe then that I am most to be identified with my better part that I enjoy the best quality of life and have become United with the Divine and situated within it actualizing myself at that level and situating myself above all else in the intelligible World following on this repos within the Divine and descending from intellect into acts of calculative reasoning I ask myself in bewilderment how on Earth did I ever come down here and however did my soul come to be enclosed in a body being such as it has been revealed itself to be even while in a body this return seems to be the highest experience or state that a person can strive towards but platina sometimes goes even further and suggests that the person can even become the one itself this is a very complicated topic and patanus doesn't talk about it as much as he does about the news primarily because well it can't be talked about in fact an experience of becoming the one or mystically uniting with the one is not an experience at all it's beyond even experience the one is after all covered by an absolute apathetic Darkness nothing can be said about it it lies in the utter darkness of unsaying and unknowing Beyond things like understanding description or even experience as we saw the way that platinus approaches describing or talking about the one in the anions is absolutely incredible it's a sort of exercise in trying to explain something that cannot be explained or talked about in these texts we find some of the most radical and amazing examples of apathetic philosophy and expression in history he will describe the one in a certain way in multiple passages and then later on completely contradict himself the one is one but the one is not one the one is free and then the one is not free in fact what is so fascinating about this approach is that it isn't necessarily descriptive at all that is platinus is not describing anything about the one for us because such a thing cannot be achieved instead it's a kind of participatory process what does this mean well when platanus describes or rather undes describes the one he's taking us on a journey or a kind of exercise he doesn't give us any actual descriptions of the one but gives us paradoxical statements the one is this but it is not this the one is that but also not that he's helping us collapse all our conceptions and understandings undermining any way that we can conceptualize the topic in our head until there is nothing left but our own unknowing or ignorance and it is there in that unknowing darkness that we maybe will get a glimpse of what the one entails it's crazy stuff and it is this one that we can become one with as it were we've already explored the fact that everything kind of takes place within the one and everything partakes of the one although this is another one of those paradoxes the one is everything and everywhere but it is also nowhere and utterly beyond anything quote it is because the one is omnipresent for there is nowhere where it is not and so it fills everything and so it is a mini or rather it is already all things for if it itself we're only everywhere it would be everything but since it is also nowhere while all things come to be due to it because it is everywhere they are other than it because it is nowhere and another quote the one is outside nothing but it has intercourse with all things indeed this apathetic way of talking about the one of postulating that the very fundamental aspect of reality cannot be understood or grasped or described in any kind of way would be incredibly influential on the theologians and philosophers of the monotheistic religions so thinkers from the Islamic Christian and Jewish religions and so would play a major role in the vocabulary and symbolism of the theologies and mysticisms maybe of all those religions in any case platinus indicates that we can become the one to be United with it it's something that is exceedingly rare but it can be done by the most accomplished of souls plutonis himself has obviously had this experience or should I say non-experience in fact porphyry tells us in his biography the platanists experienced this highest state on four occasions while he was with him quote so it is that this Divine Diamond of a man ascended in his thought to the first Transcendent God many times traveling the roads described by Plato and the Symposium and to him appeared that God who has neither shape nor form who has his seat above intellect and every intelligible thing I poor free now 67 years old once Junior this God and was unified with him anyway the goal appeared near platinus his aim or goal was to be unified and to be present to the god that is set over all things this goal an Indescribable state of perfection he achieved some four times while I was with him and when we read sections from the anions that talk about this uniting with the one it seems pretty clear that he's speaking from first-hand experience quote on actually ascending to this and becoming this alone casting aside all else what could we say about it except that we are more than free and have more than autonomy who would connect us with chance events either random or due to an accidental attribute once we have become the true life itself or having come to be in it which contains nothing else but is just itself what is this encounter with the one like well since the one cannot be described in any way obviously to try to describe what it is to be that one is equally impossible it involves a total disappearance of the self and everything associated with it to be mystically United with the Noose is one thing and that is a very high achievement indeed where we become what we already were but it seems that even in that moment of Union with the Oneness of the Noose the place where everything is non-temporally and without division the United person still retains some kind of individuality even though she has become pure knowing knowing herself through a knowledge that is herself Beyond any subject object dichotomy there is still some kind of individuality or rather there is still something but when the person wishes to achieve mystical Union with the one she has to reach even beyond the noetic to the total darkness and nothingness that is the one she has to completely shed any sense of herself even the noetic until she is utterly nothing when she is quote alone with the alone quote it is just like those who are sent to partake of the Sacred religious rights where there are acts of purification and the stripping off of the cloaks they had worn before they go inside naked one proceeds in the ascent passing by all that is alien to the god until one sees by oneself alone that which is itself alone uncorrupted simple and pure that upon which everything depends and in relation to which one looks and exists and lives and thinks there can be nothing with the one because the one is nothing it's no thing in a sense we cannot Unite with the one at all instead we shed everything until we are nothing and in that nothing there is only the one so we aren't the one the one is simply itself it just is so this uniting Unbecoming the one is not an experience it cannot possibly be an experience because there is nothing there is no one to have an experience and nothing to experience there's just the one being what it is in its utter apathetic Darkness quote perhaps one can argue that one should not say one will see and the thing seen if indeed one should say that there are two things the Seer and the scene and that both are not one this argument is indeed rash for at the time of Union this seeing self neither sees nor discerns nor imagines two things but has in a way become another and not oneself nor does one belong to oneself in the intelligible world one has come to belong to the good and has become one like a center touching a center point and that is the absolute highest achievement and experience or non-experience that we can have and is accompanied by a kind of absolute Bliss at least in the moments after since when you are the one you are not experiencing anything including Bliss it is even described in erotic ways with the person being a lover seeking out her beloved and passionate yearning which obviously reminds us a lot of later expressions in Traditions like Sufism so now we've kind of made the whole journey we started with the one and saw how reality unfolded and flowed from this one all the way down to our individual souls and even matter itself although that is is a very complicated topic as we saw and now we've also made that Journey back from the individual self to our true home in the noetic world and even in a kind of mystical Union with the one itself the outgoing and in-going from the one back to the one the inhaling and exhaling of the breath to use the language of the Sufi IBN Arabi but this is an episode about neoplatonism after all and we're really only focused on the Tinus here he is a very significant figure perhaps the most significant figure in that tradition since he's considered the kind of founder at least the most important systematizer of that particular school of thought but there is of course a lot more to neoplatonism than just platinus because while his successors would look to him as a great Authority and base their ideas on some of the most General features of his system the later neoplatonist would Forge their own ways of looking at the world in which they could sometimes differ dramatically and fundamentally from platinus he was succeeded by people like porphery who was a close student who we've already met and and this guy kind of stuck pretty close to the teachings of his master he was though a little more interested in what we could call religion so platanus in general used language that wasn't really outright religious at all I'm sure he believed in the Gods in some way and he does refer to the newest and sometimes the one as God or Theos in singular but he doesn't really seem bothered with fitting the religious system of his culture into his philosophy indeed we saw in the biography that he even thought that the gods should come to him rather than the other way around porphyry his student was a little more interested in mythology and religion and Incorporated that somewhat more into his thought but this religious aspect really starts to flourish with the later proponents of neoplatonism such as eamblicus and proclus where these thinkers there appeared what is known as theology which is a complex topic of its own but which tries to call upon the gods through rituals often with the purpose of elevating oneself so unlike platinus who believe that we are in the news and that we can make the journey to Perfection on our own by simply plunging into the depths of our own being the theorist or theorgic neoplatonists like iamblicus believe that we actually needed the help of the Gods to achieve this journey to the higher worlds and he describes theoretic rituals to achieve such a Salvation the gods of the Greek and Roman Pantheon were often seen as being personifications of different aspects of the nomadic world for instance and are given a much more prominent role in the thought of people like yanbicus and proclus right so unlike the sinus who keeps his philosophy sort of separates some degree from from religion in that sense even though of course he uses words like God and it's obviously influenced by by religious thought to some degree um people like yamlikers and procolors incorporates the religious system much more into near platonism uh the different gods become different aspects of the news sometimes the gods Zeus or Jupiter in the Roman context is identified with the news as a whole and then all the different aspects of the news are the other gods which are kind of aspects of Zeus as the highest God so they fit the pantheon and the religious mythology into this new platonic system in a very kind of a neat and impressive way a lot of the time in general the later neoplatanists are a much more systematic in their approach than the Tinus from reading the Annie ads we can see that platanis probably has a kind of system in mind but it's very hard to make out the details of this system because the aniads are very difficult they are very messy partly because of porphy's ordering of the NS but also how they are written in themselves are a lot more they're not as clear and systematic let's just say compared to someone like proclus in his elements of theology proclus presents a much more systematic and elegant structure of the neoplatonic worldview but in these systems we often see a stark contrast to platinus well the tennis system is relatively simple he likes to identify various aspects of reality with each other and in a unified sense those of people like yamlikas proclists and others are often a lot more complex whereas platinus had a very simple one news Soul structure yamlikus argues for various levels of the one as well as multiple intellects or nooses the one has three aspects for example and the lowest aspects of the one is the highest aspect of the news and then the news has three aspects of its own and the lowest part of that is and he just every part of those parts has Parts in themselves so he and practice for example really builds the system into a much more complex picture many more parts and aspects whereas platinus himself kept it very simple and unconsciously he actually he very much criticized other metaphysical systems that made everything way too complex right he he kept it very simple as a principle while the later near platiness as we see had a much different approach theirs is a metaphysics that has a lot more parts and parts that are much more independent indeed most of the later near platonists would reject platanus's idea of the undescended self for example where as we saw an aspect of the self is always in the nose these later thinkers instead arguing for a reality where the different parts of the world or of reality are much more strictly separated from each other the human aspect can never leave the human realm as such because there is a much more Stark border between the levels and instead requires other means of achieving ascended states such as through the help of the Gods for example through theoretic rituals so this creates a pretty confusing picture while the neoplatonists in general are seen as belonging to a single school which goes back to platinus and ultimately to Plato there is a huge diversity in the different ideas that individual members of this school had as we saw in the beginning calling it a school at all can be problematic and it should probably rather be seen as a kind of loose late antique tendency within platonous thought so how can we Define neoplatanism at all well despite these differences there are still a few things that unify neoplatonism as a coherent philosophy and which characterize it and the later developments that it influenced neoplatonism in general holds the idea of the hypotheses the levels of reality which generally follow the same outline there is the one followed by the news followed by the soul followed by nature and the physical world while the different thinkers would postulate nuances to this various intellects or steps along the way the general outline is recurring in basically all of neoplatonism similarly another recurring theme is the apophatic nature of the one or of the most fundamental aspect of reality the idea that the one is hidden in an absolute darkness of Unknowing Beyond understanding or explanation we also see characteristics such as these different realities emanating out from each other that the one emanates the news which emanates the soul and so on now as metaphorical as this may be it is still a key feature of this school as well as much else of what we have talked about here today so when you see these features that I've just described in later religious schools or philosophies you'll be able to recognize them as very characteristically neoplatonic because indeed as we said in the beginning neoplatonism has been one of the most influential philosophical movements in history that has played a key role in the development of Christian Islamic and Jewish Theology and mysticism as well as influencing Western so terrorism occultism as I said in the beginning also all of what we call Western thought in general it influenced some of the earliest Christian theologians such as dionysius whose epiphatic theology expressed in works like the mystical theology is strongly proteinion and proclin in nature this would influence some of the great figures and teachings of the Eastern Orthodox church and figures in the west like Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of kuza just to mention a few in the Islamic world neoplatonism and the works of platinus became one of the defining factors in the tradition of Fel Safa and Kalam and influence such figures as ibnc representative razi and the Sufi metaphysics of figures such as IBN Arabi and abuhammad al-khazali similarly in the Jewish World neoplatonism played a major role in the emergence of various forms of Jewish philosophy and mysticism including of course Kabbalah indeed that topic of mysticism is significant because so much of what we understand as mysticism can be traced directly to neoplatonism from the apathetic language that is used to the emphasis on the soul stripping of worldiness and returning to a pure world of mind and to be mystically United with the one at the core of reality it is some of the most common language in the history of quote-unquote mysticism even if that word should be used carefully in other words we owe a whole lot to these guys and they're fascinating ideas and that is why it's so amazing that we're doing this large collaboration here on YouTube my colleagues zebi from Seekers of unity Dr Justin Sledge from esoterica Dr Angela puka Angela Symposium Dana trell from the modern hermeticist and John viveki from his channel John bervicky are all making videos about neoplatonism and its influence and relationship with different aspects of of intellectual history so be sure to check out all of those amazing episodes I'll be making two of them Xavi is making three I believe my next video in particular is going to be about neoplatonism and Islamic thought so stay tuned for that which should be coming out next week but also definitely check out the other videos or episodes they're going to be amazing I've seen the the episodes and they're absolutely incredible I'm so happy and honored to be part of this incredible project to bring one of the most influential and important philosophical traditions uh to a wider audience here on YouTube again I'm truly honored and so great to call these people my colleagues and as also my friends and I look forward to much more similar many such similar projects and collaborations in the future for now this will have to do for an admittedly inadequate and incomplete introduction to the vast world of neoplatonism we have focused primarily on platinus here who is the perhaps the central figure but we've also seen how this school and this tradition is much broader than that we've also touched on some of the other significant thinkers from that school still we've been introduced to some of the core features and most important aspects and tendencies of this amazing philosophical tradition which will help us better spot the places where it shows it's a beautiful face in the history of intellectual thoughts and even today I'll see you next time [Music]