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Select Works of Plotinus · 95 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 102

Section 3 3. The truth may be resumed in this way: There is a lowest power of the Soul, a nearest to earth, and this is interwoven throughout the entire universe: another phase possesses sensation, while yet another includes the Reason which is concerned with the objects of sensation: this higher phase holds itself to the spheres, poised towards the Above but hovering over the lesser Soul and giving forth to it an effluence which makes it more intensely vital. The lower Soul is moved by the higher which, besides encircling and supporting it, actually resides in whatsoever part of it has thrust upwards and attained the spheres. The lower then, ringed round by the higher and answering its call, turns and tends towards it; and this upward tension communicates motion to the material frame in which it is involved: for if a single point in a spheric mass is in any degree moved, without being drawn away from the rest, it moves the whole, and the sphere is set in motion. Something of the same kind happens in the case of our bodies: the unspatial movement of the Soul- in happiness, for instance, or at the idea of some pleasant event- sets up a spatial movement in the body: the Soul, attaining in its own region some good which increases its sense of life, moves towards what pleases it; and so, by force of the union established in the order of nature, it moves the body, in the body's region, that is in space. As for that phase of the Soul in which sensation is vested, it, too, takes its good from the Supreme above itself and moves, rejoicingly, in quest of it: and since the object of its desire is everywhere, it too ranges always through the entire scope of the universe. The Intellectual-Principle has no such progress in any region; its movement is a stationary act, for it turns upon itself. And this is why the All, circling as it does, is at the same time at rest.
Themes
◆Correspondencecosmology

The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.

The author draws a parallel between the center in a material mass and the source in the Soul ('as in a material mass so in the Soul').

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◆Evil As Privationtheology

Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.

Matter ('clay') is described as a hindrance that checks motion, implying evil or deficiency as a lack of the higher realm's freedom.

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◆Ladder Of Lovesoteriology

Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.

The passage identifies 'love' as the motive force by which the Soul clings to God and circles Him.

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◆Separation From Sourcesoteriology

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

The text explains that the Soul circles God because 'it cannot coincide with God', implying a state of separation.

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◆Spiritual Ascentpraxis

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

The Soul's movement is described as a course toward the divine center, holding itself near to the Being on which all depends.

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◆Theosis Deificationsoteriology

The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.

The Soul seeks to hold itself near to God as the Being on which all depends, implying a participation in divine nature.

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◆Tripartite Soulanthropology

Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).

The passage distinguishes between 'body', 'Soul', and a 'Spirit which dwells with the Soul'.

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◇Body As Obstacleanthropology

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

[auto] The passage states that the circling nature in humans is 'hampered in its motion by the clay it bears with it'.

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◇Divine Simplicitytheology

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

[auto] The higher realm is described as 'all' and without hindrance, contrasting with the lower things which are 'part' and limited.

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◇Emanation Hierarchycosmology

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

[auto] The passage distinguishes between 'lower things' and 'that other realm', establishing a hierarchy of being from the partial to the whole.

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◇Mystical Unionsoteriology

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

[auto] The text explicitly states the Soul desires 'perfect union' with God and circles Him to be as near as possible.

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◇Pleromacosmology

The divine fullness or totality of the highest realm, populated by aeons and divine attributes, contrasted with the deficient material world.

[auto] The text describes the higher realm as 'all' and 'in itself it is all that is', contrasting it with the deficient, limited lower things.

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◇Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

[auto] The passage describes the Soul's circular motion around God as a desire for perfect union and holding itself near to its origin.

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Related passages · 6 parallels
◆christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 7, Section 1b
“(2) Wisdom as a whole = Wisdom embodied in the universe as a whole. (3) Wisdom in each individual instance = Wisdom as shown in the structure of some particular plant or animal, or part of a plant or animal. (1) Is an Emanation; (2) and (…”
Both passages discuss the relationship between higher and lower aspects of the soul or mind, and the interaction between the spiritual and material realms. They also explore the nature of divine wisdom and its manifestation in the universe.
◆christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 9, Section 1b
“Dante passes outwards through the concentric spheres of space to the Empyrean which is beyond space and encloses it. There he sees the Empyrean as a point and his whole journey from sphere to sphere as a journey inwards instead of outwards…”
Both passages discuss the relationship between the higher and lower aspects of existence or the soul, and the nature of divine unity and movement. Plotinus describes the interplay between the higher and lower soul and its impact on the material world, while Dante's passage explores the concept of God as a point encompassing all things, emphasizing unity and harmony.
◆christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 2 (part 5)
“The will beholding itself in the mirror of wisdom causes its own image to appear within the groundlessness, and thus it creates a foundation in its own imagination." ( Menschwerdung , ii. 1.) "Wisdom, the eternal virgin, the playmate of Go…”
Both passages explore the interaction between higher and lower realms of existence, with the higher influencing and moving the lower. They also discuss the nature of the soul or will and its relationship to the divine or intellectual principle.
◆hermeticism|Corpus Hermeticum 2: The Serapeum|Section 1b
“A: How is it, then, that things down here, Thrice-greatest one, are moved with those that are [already] moved? For thou hast said the errant spheres were moved by the inerrant one. H: This is not, O Asclepius, a moving with, but one again…”
Both passages discuss the nature of motion and the relationship between the soul and the divine. They explore how souls or spiritual entities move in relation to a higher being or principle, though they use different metaphors and frameworks.
◆western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter IX (part 8)
“Thus in all its relations to the world the animal is quite analogous to the imagined, unreal two-dimensional being living upon a plane. All our world appears to the animal as the plane through which phenomena are passing, moving upon time,…”
Both passages explore the relationship between perception and reality, suggesting that our experience of the world is shaped by our cognitive and sensory apparatus. Passage A discusses the dependence of spatial dimensions on the psychic apparatus, while Passage B describes the Soul's different phases and their influence on perception and movement, both implying that reality is shaped by higher dimensions or principles beyond ordinary perception.
◆western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XX (part 6)
“Were our space-sense more perfect in relation to any given object, say to the body of a given man, we could embrace all his life in time, from birth to death. Then within the limits of this embrace that life would be for us a constant magn…”
Both passages explore the limitations of human perception and the nature of reality. Passage A discusses the imperfection of our three-dimensional senses and the abstraction of motion and time, while Passage B describes the different phases of the Soul and its interaction with the material world, highlighting the limitations of the lower Soul's perception.