Select Works, Section 162 (part 1)

Platonic recollection: knowledge as the soul's recovery of what it knew before birth, with learning as remembering rather than acquisition.

[auto] Creation is argued to stem from the Soul's memory of its vision of the Divine rather than a decline or forgetting.

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

The text mentions souls knowing the evils of this sphere, suggesting the material realm presents difficulties for the soul.

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.

[auto] The passage explicitly describes the material world as a beautiful reflection of the Intelligible Realm, with elements like fire and sun mirroring their divine counterparts.

A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.

The text discusses the nature of the creator Soul in direct contrast to the Gnostic view of a fallen or ignorant demiurge.

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The universe is described as admirably ordered in its course, reflecting the self-centred circling of the World of Intelligibles.

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 describes the Soul creating from things known in the Divine and moving towards its Prior, implying a hierarchical flow of being.

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.

Jarring things in the world are dismissed as evidence of unhappy origin, implying imperfection rather than positive evil compared to the Intelligible.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

[auto] Creation is described as stemming from 'things it knew in the Divine' and memory of a vision, emphasizing knowledge over ritual.

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

The creative power of the Soul acts as a mediating force deriving from knowledge of the Divine to fashion the universe.

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

References to the 'Prior' and the 'Divine' as the source from which the Soul creates imply a singular first principle.

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

[auto] The text explicitly mentions the desire to 'retrace the way' and an inclination towards its Prior as the soul's natural movement.

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 possibility of decline is defined specifically as forgetting the Divine, though this is denied for the Soul of the All.

The transmigration of the soul across lives.

The passage discusses souls returning for re-birth and suggests enlightened souls would have ceased such transmigration long ago.

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

[auto] The passage describes an effort towards a 'clearer vision' and an inclination towards the Prior as a form of upward movement.