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Select Works of Plotinus · 368 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 349 (part 2)

Here we have to enquire into the nature and being of that vestige of the soul actually present in the living body: if there is truly a soul, then, as a thing never cut off from its total, it will go with soul as soul must: if it is rather to be thought of as belonging to the body, as the life of the body, we have the same question that rose in the case of the vestige of light; we must examine whether life can exist without the presence of soul, except of course in the sense of soul living above and acting upon the remote object.
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Themes
Body As Obstacleanthropology

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

The passage suggests that passions like anger arise from bodily states (bile, blood) and that the reasoning soul must act to combat the 'evil disclosed' by these corporeal conditions.

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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.

The text references a hierarchy of soul phases, distinguishing the 'vestige of the soul' in the body from the 'higher soul-phase' and reasoning soul acting from above.

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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.

Evil is described as a 'breach of order' that the reasoning soul identifies and combats, aligning with the view of evil as disorder rather than positive substance.

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Tripartite Soulanthropology

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

[auto] The passage centrally analyzes the distinct layers of human constitution: the vegetal principle (body-wide), the passionate element (heart/bile region), and the reasoning soul (above the body).

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Related passages · 7 parallels
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 56 (part 3)
“2, Page]] 113 THE SECRET WORK OF CHIRAM. active emanations from the three higher principles in man, namely, "Spirit, Soul, and Mind," or Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. It is the spiritual and also the material human basis. Rudimentary man, hav…”
Shared concept: Tripartite Soul — Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma). (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 6 (part 8)
“They are fire-flames, illumined by the light of God, but we attain the great fountain of meekness and love which is welling up within the holy essentiality of God." 1 ( Menschwerdung , i. 5.) Man comprises all three principles: the princip…”
Shared concept: Tripartite Soul — Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma). (derived)
western_esoteric|Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky)|Chapter XVII (part 4)
“"It is not the Adam of dust (of Chapter II) who is thus made in the divine image, but the Divine Androgyne (of Chapter I), or Adam Kadmon." ADAM KADMON is HUMANITY, or humankind— Homo Sapiens —the SPHYNX, i.e., "the being with the body of a…”
Shared concept: Tripartite Soul — Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma). (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 11 (part 6)
“90.) "The living Word that dwelt within the eternal virgin attracted to itself the flesh of Mary—that is to say, the essences from the corporeal body of Mary—and thus there grew in nine months a complete human being with soul, spirit, and f…”
Shared concept: Tripartite Soul — Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma). (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 4, Section 1u
“For things of the same kind cannot 333 333 Exuberant vitality is per se a good thing and the more exuberant the better, though, like all good things, it is dangerous, and unless properly directed is disastrous. be wholly contradictory to o…”
Shared concept: Evil As Privation — 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. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall)|The Human Body in Symbolism-e
“And as in the most holy of the mysteries, they say, that the mystics at first meet with the multi form, and many-shaped genera, which are hurled forth before the gods, but on entering the temple, unmoved, and guarded by the mystic rites, th…”
Shared concept: Body As Obstacle — The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Mystical Theology|Chapter IV
“That He Who is the Pre-eminent Cause of everything sensibly perceived is not Himself any one of the things sensibly perceived. We therefore maintain 536 536 Being about to explain, in these two last chapters, that no material or mental qual…”
Shared concept: Body As Obstacle — The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return. (derived)