Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 80

12 January 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 80

1.  The Mirror of Eternity

There is a poem written by Saint Claire of Assisi.  The poem’s opening line is, “Place your mind before the mirror of eternity.”

What would you perceive, what would be reflected back to you, if you placed yourself in front of the mirror of eternity?  I think the answer would be only that which is eternal by nature.  Nothing in the material world would be reflected.  Nothing related to my body would be reflected; not my bodily shape, no colors, no sounds, no thoughts, no feelings, no recollections, no past lives.

But the soul would be reflected.  Only the soul would be reflected.

2.  The Hypostases, or Levels, of Reality

When the mind is placed under certain conditions it perceives existence in certain ways.  When the mind is fixated on the body’s needs and demands, the mind perceives a material existence.  When the mind dwells on eternal, but limited, realities, such as numbers, eternal objects, or Platonic forms, are perceived.  And when the mind is not fixated on anything material or noetic, when everything has fallen away, then the Good and the One is present as a mystic understanding that is not an understanding.

3.  What Emerges from the Third Hypostasis or Level of Reality

The first thing that emerges under the conditions of the third hypostasis is time.  Because time is the moving image of eternity, it is first in the third hypostasis.

The soul, the individual soul, is what the Soul looks like under the condition of temporality.  Just as the moon shining in a pond appears to be separate from the moon in a slowly moving stream, so also souls appear to be separate from each other under the reign of time.  Time itself is the medium of differentiation out of which this appearance of separate souls emerges.  Separate souls are what the One, the Good, the Beautiful, and the Eternal appear to be under the reign of time.  Here souls appear separate; There souls are eternally merged in the unity of the One that is beyond the reign of time which is the unmoving presence of eternity.

4.  Bleak

I am interested in how popular culture, particularly popular music, often communicates some of the bleakest aspects of human life in a direct and unvarnished way.  It surprises me that the songs I am referring to are often very popular; so much so that some of them last for many centuries.  I previously posted about the song ‘Dust in the Wind’ by Kansas which is a contemplation on impermanence.  Another song that is more bleak, and more focused on the human condition, is ‘The House of the Rising Sun.’  In 1964 a rock group called The Animals recorded this song and it was very successful commercially.  The Animals didn’t write the song which has a history going back many decades (it was first collected as a folk song and published in the 1930’s I believe).  A new version by Eric Gronwall was posted to youtube in 2025 and has attracted a lot of attention.  And there are many other covers of the song.

The song is a bleak portrait of a man who succumbs to the basest desires and deeply regrets it, but is unable to act on his regrets.  This gives the song an overall fatalistic cast.  The character in the song is in despair over his compulsive gambling, drinking, and likely whoring as well.  In one verse he expresses his regret by singing, “Mothers, tell your children, not to do what I have done.  Don’t spend your life in sin and misery at the House of the Rising Sun.”

I view a song like this as a message to humanity from the divine.  The song also depicts how difficult it is to overcome the attractions of bodily desire.  And it also depicts the pit of despair that people fall into if their life is based on fulfilling those desires. 

From a Platonist point of view, the one drawback to the song would be that it does not offer the listener any practical advice for avoiding this negative fate other than ‘not to do what I have done.’  From a Platonist point of view, the overcoming of this danger that is presented in the song is accomplished through purification in the form of ascetic practices.  And The House of the Rising Sun is a good reminder of why it is important to cultivate these practices.

5.  Alexandria

I have started thinking that it would be helpful to access Alexandrian Platonism at the close of the Classical Era.  Contemporary Platonists have been focused on what was going on in Athens.  That makes sense.  But I also think that this presents us with an incomplete picture.  I base this solely in my reading of Olympiodorus whom I have enjoyed, and a few passing remarks in various works on Platonism.  But it seems to me that Athens went in a specific direction, particularly because of Proclus’s position as head of the Athenian school and the widespread influence of his writing.  I’m not sure, but it strikes me that Alexandria may have not been so attached to these new developments. 

It's interesting to me that, according to Eunapius, Plotinus was an Egyptian who studied in Alexandria.  Perhaps the Plotinian perspective was more deeply rooted in Alexandria than it was in Athens.  Maybe that is why Porphyry had such a positive view of Egyptian philosophy. 

These are just suggestions; what one might call ‘thinking out loud.’  I hope to follow up on them in the future.