Select Works, Section 640 (part 2)

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

The mind possesses 'prior knowledge' that allows it to recognize Being and Unity in particular beings before reasoning.

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

The passage negates the physical origin of unity, stating it cannot be derived from objects like man or stone.

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

Physical objects are contrasted with the Intellectual order, implying the material presentation is inferior to true Unity.

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 text notes that unity observed in sense things remains 'Intellectual' by participation, linking the sensible to the higher order.

The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.

Unity is described as 'Intellectual' and not directly presented in physical objects, requiring an intellectual act to grasp.

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

[auto] Unity is contrasted with physical objects like man or stone, implying it is an undivided Intellectual reality rather than a composite.

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 distinguishes between the Intellectual order of Unity and the physical order of objects, implying a hierarchical distinction.

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

Unity is described as being 'grasped by an Intellectual Act' through prior knowledge rather than sensory observation.

The divine spark or luminous quality residing within the human person, potentially recognisable through introspection.

The text suggests the mind asserting unity must itself be a unity, implying an internal principle of truth.

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

[auto] The text treats Unity as the first principle that must be presupposed before Otherness or Difference can be affirmed.

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

The text posits that Otherness and Difference are later than Unity, which must be presupposed before any distinction can be affirmed.

The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.

The passage argues that 'that in us which asserts unity... is first a unity, itself,' requiring self-recognition to affirm external unity.

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

[auto] The passage centrally argues for the primacy and reality of Unity over physical multiplicity and difference.