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Select Works of Plotinus · 382 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 361

Section 41 41. The prayer is answered by the mere fact that part and other part are wrought to one tone like a musical string which, plucked at one end, vibrates at the other also. Often, too, the sounding of one string awakens what might pass for a perception in another, the result of their being in harmony and tuned to one musical scale; now, if the vibration in a lyre affects another by virtue of the sympathy existing between them, then certainly in the All- even though it is constituted in contraries- there must be one melodic system; for it contains its unisons as well, and its entire content, even to those contraries, is a kinship. Thus, too, whatever is hurtful to man- the passionate spirit, for example, drawn by the medium of the gall into the principle seated in the liver- comes with no intention of hurt; it is simply as one transferring fire to another might innocently burn him: no doubt, since he actually set the other on fire he is a cause, but only as the attacking fire itself is a cause, that is by the merely accidental fact that the person to whom the fire was being brought blundered in taking it.
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Themes
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 implies a flow of being where items partake of soul through the medium of the ensouled All.

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Kingdom Withinanthropology

The claim that the divine realm is present inside the individual, accessible without external mediation.

[auto] It asserts that every single item possesses power and has partaken of soul, indicating the divine is immanent within all things.

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Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

The universe is explicitly described as an 'animate being,' though the text focuses on cosmic life rather than a personal deity.

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Unity Of Beingtheology

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

[auto] The passage centrally argues that the universe is a single ensouled whole where every item is a full member sharing in the total power.

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Related passages · 3 parallels
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 4 (part 1)
p. 89 CHAPTER IV. CREATION. Everything we see in nature is manifested truth; only we are not able to recognise it as such, unless the truth is manifest within ourselves. God is the supreme, fundamental, universal, self-existent eternal…”
Shared concept: Unity Of Being — The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Tarot of the Bohemians (Papus)|Chapter XIV (part 8)
This is the God adored by materialist science, and we see that unconsciously its homage is offered to the Divinity itself under its most material form, even whilst it foolishly boasts of Atheism. DEATH, CORPOREAL LIFE, and the DESTINY whic…”
Shared concept: Emanation Hierarchy — 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. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 2, Section 1o
Yet It is a Whole because It includes the true existence of all things, and is Partitive because It contains the principle of separate Individuality whereby Christ possesses a Human Soul distinct from all other human souls, and whereby, too…”
Shared concept: Living God — The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality. (derived)