Opposites Transcended

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter IVa

“With respect to your inquiry, “ what the peculiarities are in each of the more excellent genera, by which they are separated from each other? ” if you understand by peculiarities the specific differences under the same genus, which are dis…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VI

“What, therefore, shall we say concerning the media? I think, indeed, that from what has been before said, they will be manifest to every one; for these give completion to the indivisible connexion of the extremes. Nevertheless, it is necess…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter IXa

“I consider you, therefore, as asking, for it is your inquiry, “ Why, since the Gods dwell in the heavens alone, there are invocations by theurgists of terrestrial and subterranean Gods? ” For 45 what you assert in the beginning is not true…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter Xa

“After these things, you again subjoin another division for yourself, “ in which you separate the essences of the more excellent genera by the difference of passive and impassive .” But neither do I admit this division. For no one of the mo…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVII

“We will exchange, therefore, this division for the doubt which may be adduced by you against the present opinion. “ For ,” it may be said by you, “ how, conformably to what we assert, can the sun and moon, and the visible natures in the hea…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XVIIIa

“Your next inquiry doubts, “ how some of the Gods are beneficent, but others malefic .” This opinion, therefore, is assumed from the predictors of nativities. It is, however, entirely remote from the truth. For all the Gods are good, and i…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter XIXa

“In the next place, therefore, we shall answer your question, “ What it is which conjoins the Gods that have a body in the heavens with the incorporeal Gods. ” What this is, therefore, is evident from what has been before said. For 72 if t…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter V

“There are, therefore, many species of divine possession, and divine inspiration is multifariously excited; whence, also, the signs of it are many and different. For either the Gods are different, by whom we are inspired, and thus produce a…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter III

“Dissolving, however, the doubts in a way still more true, we think it requisite, in invoking superior natures, to take away the evocations 208 which appear to be directed to them as to men, and also the mandates in the performance of works,…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter IX

“After the body of the universe, also, many things are generated by the nature of it. For the concord of similars, and the contrariety of dissimilars, effect not a few things. Farther still, the assemblage of many things into the one animal…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter II

“The hostile opposition, therefore, in the things that are now proposed, may be easily dissolved by demonstrating the dignity of wholes with 226 respect to parts, and by recalling to your recollection the exempt transcendency of the Gods abo…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter IVb

“For how, in short, can that which is not possess in itself a certain contest [with any thing]? You in vain, therefore, suspect things of this kind to be absurd, and you adduce doubts unworthy of the Gods, since they cannot be reasonably ap…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII

“What then, is it not possible for a man to liberate himself [from fate] through the Gods that revolve in the heavens, and to consider the same as the leaders of fate, and yet as 311 those that bind our lives with indissoluble bonds? Perhaps…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIIIo

“In the next place, departing from intellect, and descending into reasoning and dianoia, it no longer apprehended real beings by simple intuitions, but syllogistically and transitively, proceeding from one thing to another, from propositions…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII{

“The following testimony of an anonymous Greek writer, prefixed to the manuscript of this treatise, which Gale published, proves that this work was written by Iamblichus: Ιστεον οτι ο φιλοσοφος Προκλος υπομνηματιζων τας του μεγαλου Πλωτινου…”

◆Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII

“The Pythagoreans, likewise, adorned numbers and figures with the appellations of the Gods. For they called the equilateral triangle, Minerva Coryphagenes, or begotten from the summit, and Tritogeneia because it is divided by three perpendi…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 190

“Section 3 3. Nor would it be sound to condemn this Kosmos as less than beautiful, as less than the noblest possible in the corporeal; and neither can any charge be laid against its source. The world, we must reflect, is a product of Necessi…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 191

“Section 4 4. That water extinguishes fire and fire consumes other things should not astonish us. The thing destroyed derived its being from outside itself: this is no case of a self-originating substance being annihilated by an external; it…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 205

“Section 18 18. Souls vary in worth; and the difference is due, among other causes, to an almost initial inequality; it is in reason that, standing to the Reason-Principle, as parts, they should be unequal by the fact of becoming separate. W…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 259

“Section 7 7. Now comes the question whether, in all this discussion, we are not merely helping to make out a case for some other order of Beings and talking of matters alien to ourselves. But how could that be? What understanding can there…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 288

“Section 1 1. The soul: what dubious questions concerning it admit of solution, or where we must abide our doubt- with, at least, the gain of recognizing the problem that confronts us- this is matter well worth attention. On what subject can…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 297

“Section 10 10. In view of all this we must now work back from the items to the unit, and consider the entire scheme as one enduring thing. We ascend from air, light, sun- or, moon and light and sun- in detail, to these things as constitutin…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 308

“Section 21 21. What does all this come to? What answer do we give to him who, with no opinion of his own to assert, asks us to explain this presence? And what do we say to the question whether there is one only mode of presence of the entir…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 339

“Section 19 19. Thus what we know as pleasure and pain may be identified: pain is our perception of a body despoiled, deprived of the image of the soul; pleasure our perception of the living frame in which the image of the soul is brought ba…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 362

“Section 42 42. It follows that, for the purposes which have induced this discussion, the stars have no need of memory or of any sense of petitions addressed to them; they give no such voluntary attention to prayers as some have thought: it…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 388

“Section 8 8. A. [sometimes appearing as 9] There are those who insist on the activities observed in bodies- warming, chilling, thrusting, pressing- and class soul with body, as it were to assure its efficacy. This ignores the double fact th…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 439

“Section 7 7. The contemplating of God, we might answer. But to admit its knowing God is to be compelled to admit its self-knowing. It will know what it holds from God, what God has given forth or may; with this knowledge, it knows itself at…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 460

“Section 7 7. Consider the act of ocular vision: There are two elements here; there is the form perceptible to the sense and there is the medium by which the eye sees that form. This medium is itself perceptible to the eye, distinct from the…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 506

“Section 14 14. There is, thus, a Nature comprehending in the Intellectual all that exists, and this Principle must be the source of all. But how, seeing that the veritable source must be a unity, simplex utterly? The mode by which from the…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 509

“Section 1 1. Philosophy at a very early stage investigated the number and character of the Existents. Various theories resulted: some declared for one Existent, others for a finite number, others again for an infinite number, while as regar…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 531

“Section 24 24. There remains Situation, which like Possession is confined to a few instances such as reclining and sitting. Even so, the term is not used without qualification: we say "they are placed in such and such a manner," "he is situ…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 534

“Section 27 27. On other grounds also, it is indefensible not to have reserved the high place for the true first-principle of things but to have set up in its stead the formless, passive and lifeless, the irrational, dark and indeterminate,…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 549 (part 1)

“Section 11 11. We are bound however to enquire under what mode unity is contained in Being. How is what is termed the "dividing" effected- especially the dividing of the genera Being and unity? Is it the same division, or is it different…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 550

“Section 12 12. Enough upon that side of the question. But how does the perfection [goodness] of numbers, lifeless things, depend upon their particular unity? Just as all other inanimates find their perfection in their unity. If it should be…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 552

“Section 14 14. Why is Quality, again, not included among the Primaries? Because like Quantity it is a posterior, subsequent to Substance. Primary Substance must necessarily contain Quantity and Quality as its consequents; it cannot owe its…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 554

“Section 16 16. As for Relation, manifestly an offshoot, how can it be included among primaries? Relation is of thing ranged against thing; it is not self-pivoted, but looks outward. Place and Date are still more remote from Being. Place den…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 556

“Section 18 18. To pass to the consideration of beauty: If by beauty we mean the primary Beauty, the same or similar arguments will apply here as to goodness: and if the beauty in the Ideal-Form is, as it were, an effulgence [from that prima…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 566

“Section 5 5. These are incontrovertible facts in regard to the pseudo-substance of the Sensible realm: if they apply also in some degree to the True Substance of the Intellectual, the coincidence is, doubtless, to be attributed to analogy a…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 568

“Section 7 7. But Matter, it may be contended, is the source of existence to the Sensible things implanted in it. From what source, then, we retort, does Matter itself derive existence and being? That Matter is not a Primary we have establis…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 604

“Section 14 14. But, admitting this one soul at every point, how is there a particular soul of the individual and how the good soul and the bad? The one soul reaches to the individual but nonetheless contains all souls and all intelligences;…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 605

“Section 15 15. But how did this intruder find entrance? It had a certain aptitude and it grasped at that to which it was apt. In its nature it was capable of soul: but what is unfitted to receive soul entire- present entire but not for it-…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 621

“Section 1 1. It is suggested that multiplicity is a falling away from The Unity, infinity being the complete departure, an innumerable multiplicity, and that this is why unlimit is an evil and we evil at the stage of multiplicity. A thing,…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 633 (part 1)

“Section 13 13. It cannot reasonably be thought that the notion of unity is derived from the object since this is physical- man, animal, even stone, a presentation of that order is something very different from unity [which must be a thing…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 640 (part 2)

“If then the future is present, it must be present as having been foreconceived for later coming to be; at that divine stage therefore it lacks nothing and therefore can never lack; all existed, eternally and in such a way that at the later…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 659

“Section 20 20. Since we are not entitled to make desire the test by which to decide on the nature and quality of the good, we may perhaps have recourse to judgement. We would apply the opposition of things- order, disorder; symmetry, irregu…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 660

“Section 21 21. Now what in all these objects of desire is the fundamental making them good? We must be bold: Intellectual-Principle and that life are of the order of good and hold their desirability, even they, in virtue of belonging to tha…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 661

“Section 22 22. That light known, then indeed we are stirred towards those Beings in longing and rejoicing over the radiance about them, just as earthly love is not for the material form but for the Beauty manifested upon it. Every one of th…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 695 (part 2)

“For if the act of will springs from God Himself and is as it were His operation and the same will is identical with His essence, He must be self-established. He is not, therefore, "what He has happened to be" but what He has willed to be.…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 698

“Section 16 16. We maintain, and it is evident truth, that the Supreme is everywhere and yet nowhere; keeping this constantly in mind let us see how it bears on our present enquiry. If God is nowhere, then not anywhere has He "happened to be…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 700 (part 1)

“Section 18 18. Seeking Him, seek nothing of Him outside; within is to be sought what follows upon Him; Himself do not attempt. He is, Himself, that outer, He the encompassment and measure of all things; or rather He is within, at the inne…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 701

“Section 19 19. Stirred to the Supreme by what has been told, a man must strive to possess it directly; then he too will see, though still unable to tell it as he would wish. One seeing That as it really is will lay aside all reasoning upon…”

◆Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 710 (part 2)

“Unity, self-present, it has no need of self-intellection: indeed this "self-presence" were better left out, the more surely to preserve the unity; we must eliminate all knowing and all association, all intellection whether internal or exter…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 16

“Section 12 12. But if Soul is sinless, how come the expiations? Here surely is a contradiction; on the one side the Soul is above all guilt; on the other, we hear of its sin, its purification, its expiation; it is doomed to the lower world,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 19 (part 2)

“So with us: it is from the Supreme that we derive order and distribution and harmony, which are virtues in this sphere: the Existences There, having no need of harmony, order or distribution, have nothing to do with virtue; and, none the le…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 28

“Section 2 2. The born lover, to whose degree the musician also may attain- and then either come to a stand or pass beyond- has a certain memory of beauty but, severed from it now, he no longer comprehends it: spellbound by visible lovelines…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 40

“Section 7 7. Then why are these conditions sought and their contraries repelled by the man established in happiness? Here is our answer: These more pleasant conditions cannot, it is true, add any particle towards the Sage's felicity: but th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 46

“Section 13 13. The characteristic activities are not hindered by outer events but merely adapt themselves, remaining always fine, and perhaps all the finer for dealing with the actual. When he has to handle particular cases and things, he m…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 48

“Section 15 15. But suppose two wise men, one of them possessing all that is supposed to be naturally welcome, while the other meets only with the very reverse: do we assert that they have an equal happiness? We do, if they are equally wise.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 68

“Section 7 7. Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say that it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good. To attain it is for t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 101

“Section 2 2. And what of lower things? [Why have they not this motion?] [Their case is very different]: the single thing here is not an all but a part and limited to a given segment of space; that other realm is all, is space, so to speak,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 121

“Section 18 18. Are the evils in the Universe necessary because it is of later origin than the Higher Sphere? Perhaps rather because without evil the All would be incomplete. For most or even all forms of evil serve the Universe- much as the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 144

“Section 5 5. How can we talk of it? How can it be the Matter of real things? It is talked of, and it serves, precisely, as a Potentiality. And, as being a Potentiality, it is not of the order of the thing it is to become: its existence is n…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 147

“Section 2 2. But we must enquire into Quality in itself: to know its nature is certainly the way to settle our general question. The first point is to assure ourselves whether or not one and the same thing may be held to be sometimes a mere…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 159

“Section 3 3. Ever illuminated, receiving light unfailing, the All-Soul imparts it to the entire series of later Being which by this light is sustained and fostered and endowed with the fullest measure of life that each can absorb. It may be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 166

“Section 10 10. Under detailed investigation, many other tenets of this school- indeed we might say all- could be corrected with an abundance of proof. But I am withheld by regard for some of our own friends who fell in with this doctrine be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 195 (part 1)

“Section 8 8. Thus we come to our enquiry as to the degree of excellence found in things of this Sphere, and how far they belong to an ordered system or in what degree they are, at least, not evil. Now in every living being the upper parts…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 200

“Section 13 13. And we must not despise the familiar observation that there is something more to be considered than the present. There are the periods of the past and, again, those in the future; and these have everything to do with fixing w…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 204 (part 2)

“But these actors, Souls, hold a peculiar dignity: they act in a vaster place than any stage: the Author has made them masters of all this world; they have a wide choice of place; they themselves determine the honour or discredit in which th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 207

“Section 1 1. What is our answer? All events and things, good and evil alike, are included under the Universal Reason-Principle of which they are parts- strictly "included" for this Universal Idea does not engender them but encompasses them.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 209

“Section 3 3. For, even though the I is sovereign in choosing, yet by the fact of the choice the thing done takes its place in the ordered total. Your personality does not come from outside into the universal scheme; you are a part of it, yo…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 215

“Section 1 1. Some Existents [Absolute Unity and Intellectual-Principle] remain at rest while their Hypostases, or Expressed-Idea, come into being; but, in our view, the Soul generates by its motion, to which is due the sensitive faculty- th…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 229

“Section 8 8. But what are we to understand by this Zeus with the garden into which, we are told, Poros or Wealth entered? And what is the garden? We have seen that the Aphrodite of the Myth is the Soul and that Poros, Wealth, is the Reason-…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 236 (part 1)

“Section 4 4. We have, however, still to examine what is called the affective phase of the Soul. This has, no doubt, been touched upon above where we dealt with the passions in general as grouped about the initiative phase of the Soul and…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 256

“Section 4 4. We must, however, avoid thinking of it as an accidental from outside grafted upon that Nature: it is native to it, integral to it. It is discerned as present essentially in that Nature like everything else that we can predicate…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 257

“Section 5 5. This Ever-Being is realized when upon examination of an object I am able to say- or rather, to know- that in its very Nature it is incapable of increment or change; anything that fails by that test is no Ever-Existent or, at le…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 265 (part 1)

“Section 13 13. The Spheral Circuit, then, performed in Time, indicates it: but when we come to Time itself there is no question of its being "within" something else: it must be primary, a thing "within itself." It is that in which all the…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 275 (part 1)

“Section 9 9. Clearly a Being of this nature is not the primal existent; there must exist that which transcends it, that Being [the Absolute], to which all our discussion has been leading. In the first place, Plurality is later than Unity.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 276 (part 1)

“Section 10 10. And what will such a Principle essentially be? The potentiality of the Universe: the potentiality whose non-existence would mean the non-existence of all the Universe and even of the Intellectual-Principle which is the prim…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 278 (part 1)

“Section 1 1. "The Intellectual-Principle" [= the Divine Mind]- we read [in the Timaeus]- "looks upon the Ideas indwelling in that Being which is the Essentially Living [= according to Plotinus, the Intellectual Realm], "and then"- the text…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 283

“Section 1 1. In the Intellectual Kosmos dwells Authentic Essence, with the Intellectual-Principle [Divine Mind] as the noblest of its content, but containing also souls, since every soul in this lower sphere has come thence: that is the wor…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 292

“Section 5 5. But what place is left for the particular souls, yours and mine and another's? May we suppose the Soul to be appropriated on the lower ranges to some individual, but to belong on the higher to that other sphere? At this there w…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 293

“Section 6 6. But how comes it that while the All-Soul has produced a kosmos, the soul of the particular has not, though it is of the one ideal Kind and contains, it too, all things in itself? We have indicated that a thing may enter and dwe…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 300

“Section 13 13. The Ineluctable, the Kosmic Law is, thus, rooted in a natural principle under which each several entity is overruled to go, duly and in order, towards that place and Kind to which it characteristically tends, that is towards…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 314

“Section 27 27. But of what soul; of that which we envisage as the more divine, by which we are human beings, or that other which springs from the All? Memory must be admitted in both of these, personal memories and shared memories; and when…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 321

“Section 1 1. What, then, will be the Soul's discourse, what its memories in the Intellectual Realm, when at last it has won its way to that Essence? Obviously from what we have been saying, it will be in contemplation of that order, and hav…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 324

“Section 4 4. In that realm it has also vision, through the Intellectual-Principle, of The Good which does not so hold to itself as not to reach the soul; what intervenes between them is not body and therefore is no hindrance- and, indeed, w…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 351 (part 2)

“It is not to be thought that such beings engage themselves in human affairs in the sense of making men thieves, slave-dealers, burglars, temple-strippers, or debased effeminates practising and lending themselves to disgusting actions: that…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 365 (part 1)

“Section 45 45. From this discussion it becomes perfectly clear that the individual member of the All contributes to that All in the degree of its kind and condition; thus it acts and is acted upon. In any particular animal each of the lim…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 367

“Section 1 1. We undertook to discuss the question whether sight is possible in the absence of any intervening medium, such as air or some other form of what is known as transparent body: this is the time and place. It has been explained tha…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 411

“Section 2 2. Now to begin with, the unity of soul, mine and another's, is not enough to make the two totals of soul and body identical. An identical thing in different recipients will have different experiences; the identity Man, in me as I…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 418

“Section 2 2. Let every soul recall, then, at the outset the truth that soul is the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, all the creatures of the air, the divine st…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 420

“Section 4 4. But there is yet another way to this knowledge: Admiring the world of sense as we look out upon its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, thinking of the gods within it, seen and hidden, and the celestial spir…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 437 (part 1)

“Section 5 5. Does it all come down, then, to one phase of the self knowing another phase? That would be a case of knower distinguished from known, and would not be self-knowing. What, then, if the total combination were supposed to be of…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 442 (part 1)

“Section 10 10. This matter need not be elaborated at present: it suffices to say that if the created were all, these ultimates [the higher] need not exist: but the Supreme does include primals, the primals because the producers. In other…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 442 (part 2)

“Similarly the knowing principle itself cannot remain simplex, especially in the act of self-knowing: all silent though its self-perception be, it is dual to itself. Of course it has no need of minute self-handling since it has nothing to l…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 444 (part 1)

“Section 12 12. But why, after all, should it not be such a manifold as long as it remains one substantial existence, having the multiplicity not of a compound being but of a unity with a variety of activities? Now, no doubt, if these vari…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 445

“Section 13 13. Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but the all-transcending, resting above even the most august divine Mind, possesses alone of all true being, and is not a thing among things; we ca…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 451

“Section 1 1. Anything existing after The First must necessarily arise from that First, whether immediately or as tracing back to it through intervenients; there must be an order of secondaries and tertiaries, in which any second is to be re…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 454 (part 1)

“Section 1 1. The Intellectual-Principle, the veritably and essentially intellective, can this be conceived as ever falling into error, ever failing to think reality? Assuredly no: it would no longer be intelligent and therefore no longer…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 456

“Section 3 3. Thus we have here one identical Principle, the Intellect, which is the universe of authentic beings, the Truth: as such it is a great god or, better, not a god among gods but the Godhead entire. It is a god, a secondary god man…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 462

“Section 9 9. Everything brought into being under some principle not itself is contained either within its maker or, if there is any intermediate, within that: having a prior essential to its being, it needs that prior always, otherwise it w…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 464

“Section 11 11. It is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with nothing towards which to direct any partial content. Absolutely One, it has never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is under no limit either in regard t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 468

“Section 1 1. There is a principle having intellection of the external and another having self-intellection and thus further removed from duality. Even the first mentioned is not without an effort towards the pure unity of which it is not so…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 469

“Section 2 2. Thus there is the primally intellective and there is that in which intellection has taken another mode; but this indicates that what transcends the primarily intellective has no intellection; for, to have intellection, it must…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 471

“Section 4 4. Another consideration is that if The Good [and First] is simplex and without need, it can neither need the intellective act nor possess what it does not need: it will therefore not have intellection. (Interpolation or corruptio…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 473

“Section 6 6. If this reasoning is valid, The Good has no scope whatever for intellection which demands something attractive from outside. The Good, then, is without Act. What Act indeed, could be vested in Activity's self? No activity has y…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 475

“Section 1 1. We have to examine the question whether there exists an ideal archetype of individuals, in other words whether I and every other human being go back to the Intellectual, every [living] thing having origin and principle There. I…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 476

“Section 2 2. But individuals are brought into being by the union of the Reason-Principles of the parents, male and female: this seems to do away with a definite Reason-Principle for each of the offspring: one of the parents- the male let us…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 480

“Section 2 2. But let us leave the arts and consider those works produced by Nature and admitted to be naturally beautiful which the creations of art are charged with imitating, all reasoning life and unreasoning things alike, but especially…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 489

“Section 11 11. Similarly any one, unable to see himself, but possessed by that God, has but to bring that divine- within before his consciousness and at once he sees an image of himself, himself lifted to a better beauty: now let him ignore…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 496

“Section 4 4. But, soul reached, why need we look higher; why not make this The First? A main reason is that the Intellectual-Principle is at once something other and something more powerful than Soul and that the more powerful is in the nat…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 503

“Section 11 11. Now as to the arts and crafts and their productions: The imitative arts- painting, sculpture, dancing, pantomimic gesturing- are, largely, earth-based; on an earthly base; they follow models found in sense, since they copy fo…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 521

“Section 14 14. The Academy and the Lyceum are places, and parts of Place, just as "above," "below," "here" are species or parts of Place; the difference is of minuter delimitation. If then "above," "below," "the middle" are places- Delphi,…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 526

“Section 19 19. We have to ask ourselves whether there are not certain Acts which without the addition of a time-element will be thought of as imperfect and therefore classed with motions. Take for instance living and life. The life of a def…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 551

“Section 13 13. We turn to ask why Quantity is not included among the primary genera, and Quality also. Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are permanently associated with Being. Motion is bound up with Actual Being [Being-in-…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 555

“Section 17 17. Why are not beauty, goodness and the virtues, together with knowledge and intelligence, included among the primary genera? If by goodness we mean The First- what we call the Principle of Goodness, the Principle of which we ca…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 562

“Section 1 1. We have now explained our conception of Reality [True Being] and considered how far it agrees with the teaching of Plato. We have still to investigate the opposed principle [the principle of Becoming]. There is the possibility…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 611

“Section 4 4. Then consider this god [in man] whom we cannot think to be absent at some point and present at another. All that have insight into the nature of the divine beings hold the omnipresence of this god and of all the gods, and reaso…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 614

“Section 7 7. To Real Being we go back, all that we have and are; to that we return as from that we came. Of what is There we have direct knowledge, not images or even impressions; and to know without image is to be; by our part in true know…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 618

“Section 11 11. But how can the unextended reach over the defined extension of the corporeal? How can it, so, maintain itself as a unity, an identity? This is a problem often raised and reason calls vehemently for a solution of the difficult…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 622

“Section 2 2. What, then, of the "Number of the Infinite"? To begin with, how is Number consistent with infinity? Objects of sense are not unlimited and therefore the Number applying to them cannot be so. Nor is an enumerator able to number…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 623

“Section 3 3. And there is the question How can the infinite have existence and remain unlimited: whatever is in actual existence is by that very fact determined numerically. But, first, if multiplicity holds a true place among Beings, how c…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 627

“Section 7 7. It is inevitably necessary to think of all as contained within one nature; one nature must hold and encompass all; there cannot be as in the realm of sense thing apart from thing, here a sun and elsewhere something else; all mu…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 628

“Section 8 8. As then there is a Life-Form primal- which therefore is the Life-Form Absolute- and there is Intellectual-Principle or Being, Authentic Being, these, we affirm, contain all living things and all Number, and Absolute Justice and…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 636 (part 1)

“Section 16 16. But here we may be questioned about these numbers which we describe as the primal and authentic: "Where do you place these numbers, in what genus among Beings? To everyone they seem to come under Quantity and you have certa…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 649

“Section 10 10. But failure There? What can defensive horns serve to There? To sufficiency as living form, to completeness. That principle must be complete as living form, complete as Intellect, complete as life, so that if it is not to be o…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 650 (part 1)

“Section 11 11. The very heavens, patently multiple, cannot be thought to disdain any form of life since this universe holds everything. Now how do these things come to be here? Does the higher realm contain all of the lower? All that ha…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 662

“Section 23 23. That which soul must quest, that which sheds its light upon Intellectual-Principle, leaving its mark wherever it falls, surely we need not wonder that it be of power to draw to itself, calling back from every wandering to res…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 664

“Section 25 25. It is in view, probably, of this difficulty that Plato, in the Philebus, makes pleasure an element in the Term; the good is not defined as a simplex or set in Intellectual-Principle alone; while he rightly refrains from ident…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 680

“Section 41 41. Intellection seems to have been given as an aid to the diviner but weaker beings, an eye to the blind. But the eye itself need not see Being since it is itself the light; what must take the light through the eye needs the lig…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 681

“Section 42 42. Faced by the difficulty of placing these powers, you must in reason allocate to the secondaries what you count august: secondaries must not be foisted upon the First, or tertiaries upon the secondaries. Secondaries are to be…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 683

“Section 1 1. Can there be question as to whether the gods have voluntary action? Or are we to take it that, while we may well enquire in the case of men with their combination of powerlessness and hesitating power, the gods must be declared…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 685

“Section 3 3. All this calls for examination; the enquiry must bring us close to the solution as regards the gods. We have traced self-disposal to will, will to reasoning and, next step, to right reasoning; perhaps to right reasoning we must…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 686

“Section 4 4. It will be asked how act rising from desire can be voluntary, since desire pulls outward and implies need; to desire is still to be drawn, even though towards the good. Intellectual-Principle itself comes under the doubt; havin…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 687

“Section 5 5. Are we, however, to make freedom and self-disposal exclusive to Intellectual-Principle as engaged in its characteristic Act, Intellectual-Principle unassociated, or do they belong also to soul acting under that guidance and per…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 688

“Section 6 6. How then did we come to place freedom in the will when we made out free action to be that produced- or as we also indicated, suppressed- at the dictate of will? If what we have been saying is true and our former statement is co…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 689

“Section 7 7. Soul becomes free when it moves, through Intellectual-Principle, towards The Good; what it does in that spirit is its free act; Intellectual-Principle is free in its own right. That principle of Good is the sole object of desir…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 690

“Section 8 8. But it is not, in our view, as an attribute that this freedom is present in the First. In the light of free acts, from which we eliminate the contraries, we recognise There self-determination, self-directed and, failing more su…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 699

“Section 17 17. Or consider it another way: We hold the universe, with its content entire, to be as all would be if the design of the maker had so willed it, elaborating it with purpose and prevision by reasonings amounting to a Providence.…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 702

“Section 20 20. The difficulty will be raised that God would seem to have existed before thus coming into existence; if He makes Himself, then in regard to the self which He makes He is not yet in being and as maker He exists before this Him…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 703

“Section 21 21. Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did? If He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for He certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of the inapt; it is that steadfast consta…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 706

“Section 2 2. It may be suggested that, while in the unities of the partial order the essence and the unity are distinct, yet in collective existence, in Real Being, they are identical, so that when we have grasped Being we hold unity; Real…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 714

“Section 10 10. But how comes the soul not to keep that ground? Because it has not yet escaped wholly: but there will be the time of vision unbroken, the self hindered no longer by any hindrance of body. Not that those hindrances beset that…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 715

“Section 11 11. This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not himself attained t…”

◇Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 716

“Section 11 11. This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not himself attained t…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Initiation of the Pyramidh

“It was portrayed as androgynous to signify that they recognized the initiates and gods as partaking of both the positive and negative creative powers. Gerald Massey writes: "This is the secret of the Sphinx. The orthodox sphinx of Egypt i…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles and Birdsq

“The sacred emblem of the ancient initiates, here composed of 13 stars,, also appears above the head of the "eagle." The motto, E Pluribus Unum, contains 13 letters, as does also the inscription, Annuit Cœptis. The "eagle" clutches in its r…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Qabbalah, the Secret Doctrine of Israeld

“The third volume used as a reference was the Sepher Yetzirah , by the late Win. Wynn Westcott, Magus of the Rosicrucian Society of England. The fourth was the Sepher Yetzirah , or The Book of Creation, according to the translation in the…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Tree of the Sephirothf

“This is located where the horizontal line connecting Chochmah and Binah crosses the vertical line joining Kether and Tiphereth. While Daath is not mentioned by the first Qabbalists, it is a highly important element and its addition to the…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Mane

“Philo Judæus considered Adam to represent the human mind, which could understand (and hence give names to) the creatures about it, but could not comprehend (and hence left nameless) the mystery of its own nature. Adam was also likened to t…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Manh

“Bede the Venerable, declared that Noah in all things typified Christ as Noah alone of his generation was just, so Christ alone was without sin. With Christ there was a sevenfold spirit of grace: with Noah seven righteous Persons. Noah by…”

◆Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) | Chapter I (part 4)

“New forms of knowledge. The ideas of Plotinus. Different forms of consciousness. Sleep (the potential state of consciousness). Dreams (consciousness en-closed in itself, reflected from itself). Waking consciousness (dualistic sensation…”

◆Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) | Chapter II (part 6)

“." 1 But the formula defining "space" as "the form of matter in the universe" suffers from this deficiency, that there is introduced in it the concept of "matter," i.e., the unknown . I have already spoken of that "dead-end siding," x=y, y…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 10, Section 1c

“It is spoken of by ail the Christian Mystics as the root of our being, or as the spark, or the Synteresis, etc. Our perfection consists in this ultimate reality, which is each man’s self, shining through his whole being and transforming it…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 1, Section 1e

“These mysteries we learn from the Divine Scriptures, and thou wilt find that in well-nigh all the utterances of the Sacred Writers the Divine Names refer in a Symbolical Revelation 72 72 ἐκφαντορικῶς καὶ ὑμνητικῶς. to Its beneficent Emanat…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 11, Section 1a

“CHAPTER XI Concerning ” Peace “ and what is meant by ” Very Being “ Itself , ” Very Life ,” ” Very Power ,” and similar phrases . 1. Now let us praise with reverent hymns of peace the Divine Peace which is the Source of all mutual attract…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 11, Section 1b

“Plotinus says the Godhead is indivisibly divided. doth not leave Its own Unity, but, even in the act of going forth to all things, remains entirely within Itself through the excess of that all-transcendent Unity: concerning these things ‘t…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 13, Section 1a

“184 CHAPTER XIII Concerning ” Perfect “ and ” One .” 1. So much for these titles. Now let us, if thou art willing, proceed to the most .important Title of all. For the Divine Science attributes all qualities to the Creator of all things…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 13, Section 1b

“abundant and inexhaustible supple, whereby It perfects all perfect 498 498 “Perfect,” a term taken from the Mysteries expressing the final state of the initiated. things and fills them with Its own Perfection. 2. And the title “One” impl…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 13, Section 1c

“Emily Brontë: “Every existence would exist in Thee.”) And if all things be conceived as being ultimately unified with each other, then all things taken as a whole are One. 507 507 All things possess the same Super-Essence, and that is why…”

◆Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names | Chapter 13, Section 1f

“Thus in the form “1 x 1” the first figure represents the unity underlying all numbers, the second figure represents unity as a particular number among other numbers. The first figure may thus be taken as a symbol of the Godhead, the second…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 23

“Abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying the spontaneity of his nature. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a sudden rain does not last for the whole day. To whom is it that these (two) things are owing? To Heaven and E…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 29

“If any one should wish to get the kingdom for himself, and to effect this by what he does, I see that he will not succeed. The kingdom is a spirit-like thing, and cannot be got by active doing. He who would so win it destroys it; he who wou…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 63

“(It is the way of the Tao) to act without (thinking of) acting; to conduct affairs without (feeling the) trouble of them; to taste without discerning any flavour; to consider what is small as great, and a few as many; and to recompense inju…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 68

“He who in (Tao's) wars has skill Assumes no martial port; He who fights with most good will To rage makes no resort. He who vanquishes yet still Keeps from his foes apart; He whose hests men most fulfil Yet humbly plies his art. Thus we say…”

◆Tao Te Ching | Chapter 77

“May not the Way (or Tao) of Heaven be compared to the (method of) bending a bow? The (part of the bow) which was high is brought low, and what was low is raised up. (So Heaven) diminishes where there is superabundance, and supplements where…”

◆The Writings of Chuang Tzu (Inner Chapters) | Book 123 (part 1)

“p. 164 THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-DZE. BOOK I. PART I. SECTION I. Hsiâo-yâo Yû, or 'Enjoyment in Untroubled Ease 1 .' 1. In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, the name of which is Khwän 2 ,--I do not know how many lî in size. It changes…”

◆The Writings of Chuang Tzu (Inner Chapters) | Book 123 (part 4)

“Yâo ruled the people of the kingdom, and maintained a perfect government within the four seas. Having gone to see the four (Perfect) Ones 3 on the distant hill of Kû-shih, when (he returned to his capital) on the south of the Fän water 4 ,…”

◆The Writings of Chuang Tzu (Inner Chapters) | Book 123 (part 5)

“You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use;--why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else, or in a wide and barren wild? p. 175 [paragraph continues] There you might saunter idly by its side, or…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | INTRODUCTIONi

“The life of man is more than an experience or trial; it is an effort, a struggle to reproduce and represent upon earth some of that goodness, beauty, and truth which are diffused over the universe and constitute its harmony. Long, slow, an…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | INTRODUCTIONj

“The body is in the soul, the soul is in the mind, the mind is in God. The life of the soul is the true life of the man. Of all his various faculties, that which rules all, that which exalts our nature, is Thought. By means of it we rise…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | INTRODUCTIONl

“There he passed the first day of that imprisonment which was to last for eight years. The next day he went over the lagoon in a gondola, in the company of his jailors, who took him to the prison of the Holy Office, and left him there. Lev…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | First Dialoguec

“Hence he cries: "O mountain of Parnassus, where I abide! Muses, with whom I converse! Fountain of Helicon, where I am nourished. Mountain, that affordest me a quiet dwelling-place! Muses, that inspire me with pro found doctrines. Fount…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | First Dialoguee

“What power or spell of herb or magic art Can tear thee from the centre of my heart, Since he, who with an ever-growing zest, Tormenting most, yet most does make me blest? How can I of this weight unburdened be, If pain the cure, and joy th…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Second Dialoguea

“. Tansillo. Now begins the enthusiast to display the affections and uncover the wounds which are for a sign in his body, and in substance or essence in his soul, and he says thus: 9. Of Love the standard-bearer I; My hopes are ice, and g…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Third Dialoguec

“Here he shows his love not to be like that of the butterfly, of the stag, and of the unicorn, who would flee away if they had knowledge of the fire, of the arrow, and of the snares, and who have no other sense than that of pleasure; but he…”

◆The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | Third Dialogueh

“In which generation finding themselves once more through the changes which permutably succeed, they return again to the superior forms. Cic . So that they mean, that souls are impelled by the necessity of fate, and have no proper counsel…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1a

“(Above image of the Gospel of Thomas courtesy of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont Graduate University) Visit the Bookstore for a complete selection of translations and books about The Nag Hammadi Library The Nag Hamma…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1c

“And Jesus said, “Whoever will not eat my flesh and drink my blood has no life within him.” What does he mean? His flesh is the word and blood the holy spirit. Who has received these has food and drink and clothing. I condemn those who sa…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1f

“When wanton women see a man sitting alone, the man is overcome. They fondle him and pollute him. When wanton men see a beautiful woman sitting alone, they overcome her, and she is violated and polluted. But when spirits see a man and his…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1g

“THINGS BELOW LIKE THINGS ABOVE The lord said, “I came to make things below like things above, and the outside like the inside. I came to join them in one place.” He revealed who he is through types and images. Those who say, “There is a h…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1h

“Now the woman and man are one in the chamber with the bed, and those so joined will not come apart again. Eve and Adam separated because when they joined it was not in the chamber with the bed. ADAM’S SOUL The soul of Adam came into being…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1j

“In the world these are the true people. They are the attendants of the bridal chamber. POWER AND WEAKNESS In this world, power and weakness mingle when man and woman have sex. Joining is different in the eternal realm, though we use the…”

◆Gospel of Philip | Section 1m

“If we know the truth, we shall find the fruits of the truth within us. If we join it, it will fulfill us. THE STRONG AND WEAK, THE MANIFEST AND HIDDEN Now we have the manifest things of creation. We say, “The strong are they who are held…”

◆Gospel of Thomas | Logion 1

“And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 5)

“And in the same place, Proclus has preserved to us another copy of Orphic verses, which are also found in the writer (de Mundo); previous to which he observes, that the demiurgus, or artificer of the world, being full of ideas, comprehended…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 4 (part 15)

“For the generative causes of things, are contained by similitude in their effects; and in causes themselves their progeny subsist, comprehended in perfect union and consent. Hence the celestial orbs impart a copious defluxion of good to th…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 5 (part 3)

“Again, Vesta, in the Orphic hymns, is the same with the mother of the Gods; and the mother of the Gods is celebrated as "always governing rivers and every sea m ; which perfectly agrees with the appellations given both to Love and Proteus.…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Front Matter, p. 6 (part 3)

“Thus a bond among men, is the impediment and retention of action: but in divine concerns it insinuates a conjunction and ineffable union with causes; and hence the Saturnian bonds signify the union of the deiurgus of the universe, with the…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Hymn VII. THE SUN

“VII. TO THE SUN. The FUMIGATION from FRANKINCENSE and MANNA. HEAR golden Titan, whose eternal eye With broad survey, illumines all the sky. Self-born, unwearied in diffusing light, And to all eyes the mirrour of delight: Lord of the seasons…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Hymn XI. HERCULES (part 1)

“XI. TO HERCULES. The FUMIGATION from FRANKINCENSE. HEAR, pow'rful, Hercules untam'd and strong, To whom vast hands, and mighty works belong, Almighty Titan, prudent and benign, Of various forms, eternal and divine, Father of Time, the th…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Hymn XXVIII. PROSERPINE (part 1)

“XXVIII. TO PROSERPINE. A HYMN DAUGHTER of Jove, almighty and divine, Come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline: Only-begotten, Pluto's honor'd wife, 3 O venerable Goddess, source of life: 'Tis thine in earth's profundities to dwell,…”

◆Orphic Hymns | Hymn XXXIII. APOLLO (part 1)

“XXXIII. TO APOLLO. The FUMIGATION from MANNA. BLEST Pæan, come, propitious to my pray'r, Illustrious pow'r, whom Memphian tribes revere, Slayer of Tityus, and the God of health, Lycorian Phœbus, fruitful source of wealth . Spermatic, go…”

◆The Dhammapada | Chapter XVI, Section 1

“p. 56 CHAPTER XVI. PLEASURE. 209. He who gives himself to vanity, and does not give himself to meditation, forgetting the real aim (of life) and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation. 210. Let no…”

◆The Dhammapada | Chapter XXV, Section 1a

“p. 85 CHAPTER XXV. THE BHIKSHU (MENDICANT). 360. Restraint in the eye is good, good is restraint in the ear, in the nose restraint is good, good is restraint in the tongue. 361. In the body restraint is good, good is restraint in spee…”

◆The Dhammapada | Chapter XXVI, Section 1a

“p. 89 CHAPTER XXVI. THE BRÂHMA N A (ARHAT). 383. Stop the stream valiantly, drive away the desires, O Brâhma n a! When you have understood the destruction of all that was made, you will understand that which was not made. 384. If the…”

◆The Dhammapada | Chapter XXVI, Section 1c

“405. Him I call indeed a Brâhma n a who finds no fault with other beings, whether feeble or strong, and does not kill nor cause slaughter. 406. Him I call indeed a Brâhma n a who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with fault-finders,…”

◆The Dhammapada | Chapter XXVI, Section 1d

“Him I call indeed a Brâhma n a who has left what gives pleasure and what gives pain, who is cold, and free from all germs (of renewed life), the hero who has conquered all the worlds. 419. Him I call indeed a Brâhma n a who knows the dest…”

◆The Dhammapada | Chapter XXVI, Section 1e

“Him I call indeed a Brâhma n a who calls nothing his own, whether it be before, behind, or between, who is poor, and free from the love of the world. 422. Him I call indeed a Brâhma n a, the manly, the noble, the hero, the great sage, the…”

◆Vajrakkhedika (Diamond Cutter) | Section 1b

“observes that pa kkh abhatta m pi nd apâtapa t ikkânto is a {Greek ú!oteron próteron }, as it means, having returned from his rounds, and then made his meal on the food obtained on his rounds. 4. Pâli pa ññ ata. 5. Burnouf, Lotus, p. 3…”

◆Vajrakkhedika (Diamond Cutter) | Section 1c

“Because that Bodhisattva, O Subhûti, who gives a gift, without believing in anything, the measure of his stock of merit is not easy to learn.'--'What do you think, O Subhûti, is it easy to learn the measure of space in the eastern quarter?'…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 1: Poimandres | Section 1b

“But when He raised His head, I see in Mind the Light, [but] now in Powers no man could number, and Cosmos grown beyond all bounds, and that the Fire was compassed round about by a most mighty Power, and [now] subdued had come unto a stand.…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 1: Poimandres | Section 1f

“All this befell me from my Mind, that is Man-Shepherd, Word (Logos) of all masterhood, by whom being God-inspired I came unto the Plain of Truth. Wherefore with all my soul and strength thanksgiving give I unto Father-God. 31. Holy art T…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 5: The Discourse of Hermes to Asclepius | Section 1b

“Would that it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised midway 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowings of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftn…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 5: The Discourse of Hermes to Asclepius | Section 1c

“And for this cause hath He all names, in that they are one Father's. And for this cause hath He Himself no nome, in that He's Father of [them] all. Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise] to Thee? Whither, again, am I to tur…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 8: The Eight Sphere | Section 1a

“That No One of Existing Things doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths <The idea of cyclic change central to CH III, "The Sacred Sermon", also takes center stage here. A current of ancient specula…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 9: The Decalogue | Section 1a

“On Thought and Sense <This somewhat diffuse essay covers a series of topics, starting with (and to some extent from) the concept that the set of perceptions we call "thoughts" and the set we call "sensory perceptions" are not significantly…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 11: The Hymn | Section 1d

“And this is, My beloved, Life; this is the Beautiful; this is the Good; this, God. 14. And if thou wouldst in practice understand [this work], behold what taketh place with thee desiring to beget. Yet this is not like unto that, for He d…”

◆Corpus Hermeticum 12: The Prayer | Section 1c

“All things incorporeal when in a body are subject unto passion, and in the proper sense they are [themselves] all passions. For every thing that moves itself is incorporeal; while every thing that's moved is body. Incorporeals are further…”

◆Plato: Phaedrus | Section 1|

“The two speeches, as you may remember, were unlike-I the one argued that the lover and the other that the non-lover ought to be accepted. Phaedr. And right manfully. Soc. You should rather say "madly"; and madness was the argument of th…”

◆Plato: Republic | Section 1b

“The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth? Assuredly. But then again, as we know by experience, he whose desires are strong in one direction will have them weaker in others; they…”

◆Plato: Symposium | Section 1k

“And this is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best physician is he w…”

◆Plato: Symposium | Section 1u

“True, he said. Then Love wants and has not beauty? Certainly, he replied. And would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess beauty? Certainly not. Then would you still say that love is beautiful? Agathon replied: I fe…”

◆Plato: Symposium | Section 1v

“"And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?" "Yes." "And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?" "Yes, I did." "But how can he be a god…”

◆Plato: Symposium | Section 1w

“The truth of the matter is this: No god is a philosopher. or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, tha…”

◆Plato: Symposium | Section 1{

“"These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you…”

◆Plato: Symposium | Section 1|

“This, my dear Socrates," said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, an…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY Vd

“But the light that lights the heart is the Light of God, Which is distinct from the light of reason and sense. At night there is no light, and colors are not seen; Hence we know what light is by its opposite, darkness. At night no colors…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY Ve

“"In yourselves are signs; will ye not behold them?" (Koran li, 21). 12. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 92. Mr. Mansel (Bampton Lectures, p. 49) says: "A thing can be known as that which it is only by being distinguished from that which it is n…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY VIb

“They possess freewill and compulsion besides, 4 As in oyster-shells raindrops are pearls. Outside the shell they are raindrops, great and small; Inside they are precious pearls, big and little. These men also resemble the musk deer's bag;…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY IXd

“I knew of myself what ye thought, But I desired that ye should speak it; As this boasting of yours is very improper, So shall my mercy be shown to prevail over my wrath: O angels, in order to show forth that prevailing, I inspired that pret…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY IXe

“The useless thorn desires the autumn, That autumn may associate itself with the garden; And hide the rose's beauty and the thorn's shame, That men may not see the bloom of the one and the other's shame, That common stone and pure ruby may a…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY XVa

“Counsels of Reserve given by the Prophet to his Freedman Zaid. At dawn the Prophet said to Zaid, "How is it with thee this morning, O pure disciple?" He replied, "Thy faithful slave am I." Again he said, "If the garden of faith has bloomed…”

◆The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY XVIa

“'Ali's Forbearance. 'Ali, the "Lion of God," was once engaged in conflict with a Magian chief, and in the midst of the struggle the Magian spat in his face. 'Ali, instead of taking vengeance on him, at once dropped his sword, to the Magia…”

◇The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY VIIb

“What matters it if it be heathen or true? Why hast thou forsaken thy Beloved? What matters it if she be fair or ugly?" 4 Let me then, I say, make complaint Of the severity of That Fickle Fair One. I cry, and my cries sound sweet in His e…”

◆The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) | 1h

“35: "Ye shall not do iniquity in judgment, in dimension, in weight, and in measure." (Where these four are mystically intimated.) 37. (There is one) rigorous judgment (of severity),another that is not rigorous (that is, of the kingdom). T…”

◆The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1a

“p. 43 SPRA DTzNIOVThA (SIPHRA DTZENIOUTHA); OR, THE BOOK OF CONCEALED MYSTERY. CHAPTER I. 1. Tradition .--"The Book of Concealed Mystery" is the book of the equilibrium of balance. [The word "Dtzenioutha" is difficult to translate, but…”

◆The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1i

“unless he reads carefully what I have said in the Introduction concerning the Literal Qabalah under the heads of Notariqon and Temurah, to which therefore I refer him. Any four-lettered name is of course a tetragrammaton, but this term is…”

◆The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1o

“And the mother is illuminated (that is, in the second part of the ordinary averse Tetragrammaton, which consists of the letters IH, to the letter I, Yod , which hath the signification of the father, is added the letter H, He , which is the…”

◇The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) | 1a

“CHAPTER V. 1. (It is written) Isa. i. 4: "Woe unto the sinful nation, unto the people heavy with iniquity, unto the seed of evildoers, &c." (Here the author of the "Siphra Dtzenioutha" reasoneth concerning the small word HVI, "woe," whi…”

◇The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) | 1b

“If the reader turn to the introduction, to the Table showing the Sephiroth arranged in three pillars, he will see that Malkuth is, as it were, the antithesis of Kether; and hence it is said that "Malkuth is Kether after another manner." And…”

◇The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) | 1g

“The four wheels are their correlatives under the second Sephira, on their four sides--namely, the four elements of the air, fire, water, and earth, which are the abodes of the spirits of the elements, the sylphs, salamanders, undines, and g…”

◇The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1b

“[But the first idea of equilibrium is the Ancient One (the first Sephira, or Crown Kether), because it is the first potential limitation of the boundless light which proceeds from the Limitless One. That is, the central point of Kether is…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 10 (part 7)

“Horus , the son of Osiris and Isis, appears in Egyptian texts usually as Heru-p-khart, " Horus the child," who afterwards became the "avenger of his father Osiris," and occupied his throne, as we are told in many places in the Book of the D…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 12 (part 3)

“This scent is that which distilleth from Horus, this scent is that which distilleth from Set, and it is that which stablisheth the hearts of the two Horus gods.[2] Thou purifiest thyself with the Heru-shesu;[*] thou art purified with natron…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 43 (part 71)

“the walls of tombs,[1] stelæ, and papyri[2] of the XVIIIth dynasty; and these prove that the Egyptians ascribed the attributes of the Creator to the creature. The religious ideas which we find in these writings in the XVIIIth dynasty are,…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 43 (part 89)

“The natural opposition of the day and night was at an early period confounded with the battle which took place between Horus, the son of Isis, and Set, wherein Isis intervened, and it seems that the moral idea of the battle of right against…”

◆The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 43 (part 108)

“O Unas, the Eye of Horus hath been given to thee that it may embrace thee.[6] O Unas, the Eye of Horus which strove with Set hath been, given unto thee, in order that the opening of thy mouth may be caused thereby.[7] O Unas, that which flo…”

◇The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 2)

“Verily it shall be cast forth by my healing words of power, and I will drive it away from before the sight of thy sunbeams." The holy god opened his mouth and said, "I was passing along my path, and I was going through the two regions of my…”

◇The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani) | Chapter 8 (part 4)

“No man knoweth how to know Him--His name remaineth hidden; His name is a mystery unto His children. His names are innumerable, they are manifold and none knoweth their number--God is truth and He liveth by truth and He feedeth thereon. He…”

◆The Mabinogion | Tale PEREDUR THE SON OF EVRAWCs

“Thou seest the many lovely maidens that there are in this Court; thou shalt have her whom thou best likest for the lady of thy love.” “Lady, I came not hither from my country to woo; but match yourselves as it liketh you with the comely you…”

◆The Mabinogion | Tale TALIESINi

“The names of the three springs From the midst of the ocean; One generated brine Which is from the Corina, To replenish the flood Over seas disappearing; The second, without injury It will fall on us, When there is rain abroad, Through the w…”