Between Two Realms

14 November 2022

Between Two Realms

“The activities of Intellect are from above in the same way that those of sense-perception are from below; we are this, the principal part of the soul, in the middle between two powers, a worse and a better, the worse that of sense-perception, the better that of Intellect.  But it is generally agreed that sense-perception is always ours – for we are always perceiving – but there is disagreement about Intellect, both because we do not always use it and because it is separate; and it is separate because it itself does not incline towards us, but we rather look up towards it.  Sense-perception is our messenger, but Intellect is our King.”

(Plotinus, Ennead V.3.3, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus Ennead V, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 81.)

 

1. I understand mysticism as a shift of attention from that which is ephemeral to that which is eternal.  I see humanity as caught between these two realms; the realm of impermanent things and the realm of eternal realities.  I think this quote from Ennead V.3 as a good presentation of that human situation.

2. In a previous post, where Plotinus refers to this hypostasis as ‘Intellect and Being’, I wrote that I appreciate Plotinus’s reference to being in this context, as I think it clarifies the nature of this realm (the Greek word is ‘nous’).  If we reconfigure the translation by emphasizing Being it might look something like this:

“The activities of the Realm of Being are from above in the same way that those of sense-perception are from below; we are this, the principal part of the soul, in the middle between two powers, a worse and a better, the worse that of sense-perception, the better than of Being.  But it is generally agreed that sense-perception is always ours – for we are always perceiving – but there is disagreement about Being, both because we do not always use it and because it is separate; and it is separate because it itself does not incline towards us, but we rather look up towards it.  Sense-perception is our messenger, but Being is our King.”

3. The separateness of Being/Intellect has to do, I think, with the Platonic view that material existence depends upon Being, but Being does not depend on material existence.  This is difficult to understand in a materialist dominated culture such as ours.  Under materialism, the activities of Intellect and Being are understood to be abstractions from material experience and are thought to be, at best, epiphenomenon of material conditions.  In the Platonic view this is reversed: material things are understood as instantiations of the eternal realities found in Being/Intellect.  From this perspective, material things could not exist without Being, but being can exist without material things.

4. The terms ‘worse and better’ refer to the causal efficacy they have for the spiritual ascent.  Sense-perception is ‘worse’ because of its inherent impermanence.  The activity of Being/Intellect is ‘better’ because becoming aware of the activities of Being/Intellect involves a shift away from the transient to the transcendental.

5. Sense-perception is a messenger.  What is the message?  The message is that all material things are impermanent.

6. Being is our King because Being and its activities apply to all existing things; like numbers and the laws of their relationships.  We might say that Being establishes and maintains the regularities and universalities of the cosmos that lie behind individual, transient, manifestations. 

7. In the Platonic system Being/Intellect is not the ultimate reality of The Good, The One, and The Beautiful; but it is very close and experiencing this reality is a significant spiritual realization.