22 June 2026
Brief Notes on Various Topics - 99
1. Contemplative vs. Theurgic Platonism
I’ve noticed for a number of years that Theurgic Platonism, what might be called Ceremonial Platonism, seems to have a more forward facing, or public facing, contemporary presence than Contemplative Platonism. I say this because there seems to be more books on Theurgic perspectives than on the Contemplative perspectives. It’s not that there are no books published on Contemplative Platonism: there is Eric Fallick’s Platonist Contemplative Asceticism: Practice and Principle and there is Mark Anderson’s Pure and I suspect there are others I’m forgetting or are not aware of.
In contrast there seems to be numerous books devoted to Theurgic Platonism from Academic sources as well as from non-academics interested in the subject. Some authors, like Gregory Shaw and Edward P. Butler regularly publish from the Theurgic perspective. And there are also highly scholarly books regularly published from the Theurgic perspective, sometimes sponsored by academic organizations or associations (as an aside, I have not observed an academic association or organization publishing on Contemplative Platonism, but I might have missed it.)
In short, it seems to me that there is a greater emphasis on Theurgic Platonism than there is on Contemplative Platonism. I think there are several reasons for this:
1.1--The first is that for some reason Theurgic Platonists have been successful at characterizing what I call Contemplative Platonism as a type of philosophical rationalism. I have mentioned this before in posts dealing with other topics, but here I want to highlight the way this type of classification casts Contemplative Platonism into a shadow region which is difficult for people to access. This is because Theurgic Platonists tend to present a dichotomy between the Ceremonial and the Rational. This turns Contemplative Platonism into something people think they are familiar with because it fits in with classifications widely used in modernity. I find it frequently stated, for example, that Plotinus is a ‘rationalist’ which, to my mind, completely misrepresents what Plotinus was doing.
1.2—Another reason for the sidelining of Contemplative Platonism is that the contemplative dimensions, or the contemplative presence, in traditional Platonist sources (such as the Dialogues, The Orations of Maximus of Tyre, The Enneads of Plotinus, and so forth) have been, for the most part absorbed into Christianity through the heritage of writers like Dionysius the Areopagite, and, to a lesser extent, Boethius, and others. I think it is still difficult for Platonists to absorb the teachings on contemplation found in many Platonist sources without viewing them through a Christian lens and kind of accepting that contemplation is what Christian Platonists might do.
1.2.1 An example of the point I am making is that there are many volumes published about Christian, Catholic and Orthodox, Mysticism. Some authors have devoted much of their lives to publishing series on this topic; a good example is the series of books published by Bernard McGinn on Christian Mysticism that covers this topic from very early examples to fairly recent manifestations. In contrast, locating works on Platonic Mysticism, which do exist, requires dedication and persistence since such works tend to be marginal to how the Platonist tradition is understood.
1.3 One of the intriguing things about Theurgic Platonism is that it seems to have recently found a place in the University. I mean that some prominent contemporary Platonists who have a positive view of Theurgy are academics themselves and some are involved in various Platonist academic organizations.
1.4 I’m not complaining about this situation. It is what it is. But I think it is helpful for those of us who comprehend Platonism as a contemplative ascetic spiritual tradition to know where we stand in relation to other views of what Platonism is.
2. Farewell, Angelina
The machine guns are roaring and the puppets heave rocks
Bob Dylan, Farewell Angelina
My favorite Bob Dylan song is Farewell Angelina. It has a very simple melody and chord progression in 3-4 time. In contrast, the images of Farewell Angelina can, at first, feel obscure and at times difficult to access. After some time with the song, though, the listener can sense how the images gradually build up. The images start with fairly benign examples like triangles ringing and an empty table by the sea; things like that. As the verses progress the images become more stark including undertakers, shotgun blasts, and so forth. I quoted the closing verse above which opens with images of violence in the first two lines. In line 3 there is a shift and I see in this shift a kind of turning away and an arising of indifference as the verse says ‘Call me any name you like . . . ‘ This is a shift in mood in the song and introduces what I think of as the resolution of the last three lines. The phrase ‘Farewell, Angelina’ is used at least once in each verse; in the opening verse it is used twice. So the turning away found in line 3 emerges from this turning away from some kind of relationship. (As an aside, the ending of relationships is a common theme in early Dylan; think of ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice’. To be fair, such songs are found frequently in popular music, particularly in Country Western so Dylan writing songs where this theme appears fits in with the popular music of his time.) In line 4 the violence that has appeared in various verses, culminating in lines 1 & 2 of the closing verse, returns with the phrase ‘the sky is erupting’.
The concluding line, ‘I must go where it’s quiet’ is an explanation of what the singer is doing in the face of all the previous moments that are captured by the various images in the verses of the song. The ‘quiet’ that the singer must go to is, to my way of thinking, an interior quiet. This implies, I think, that one can only overcome the violence and cacophony of the previous images by finding the quiet, the peace, that is within. This may be a stretch, but I think of this line as pointing to the antidote that is contemplation. The sky is erupting, machine guns are firing, timebombs are ready to explode; even so there is a place of quiet and peace that we can always turn to because it is always present within. From a Platonist perspective the ultimate source of the peace within is the presence of eternity which is the Good, the One, and the Beautiful.
You can listen to Farewell Angelina on YouTube. It’s interesting to me that Bob Dylan himself did very few recordings of this song. But there are excellent covers of this song by various artists, and there is a French version that I find really excellent as well called ‘Adieu Angelina’ which is also available on YouTube, sung by Nana Mouskouri who seemed to make the song a staple of her career, often singing it as a duet with others. Probably the most famous cover of the song in the English-speaking world is the one by Joan Baez. I think it’s helpful to listen to more than one version of the song as different singers highlight different aspects.
3. Addendum to Last Week’s Post on Plato’s Laws
Last week I quoted an early section of Plato’s Laws, making the point that this section can be interpreted as Plato speaking to the reader about the multiple layers of meaning in that dialogue. I think there is a similar passage in The Republic as follows:
“So Glaucon and the others begged me to help in every way; not abandon the discussion, but on the contrary track down the nature of each of our subjects (justice and injustice) and how the truth of each stood regarding the benefit they each provided. So I said how it seemed to me, that: ‘The search we are undertaking is no mean task, but as I see it, it’s one that needs a sharp eye, not a weak one. Since therefore,’ I said, ‘we are not good at making an inquiry of such a kind, I think we should employ the kind of investigation suitable for people who are not very keen-sighted, if someone had ordered them to read small letters from a distance, but then someone noticed that the same letters existed somewhere else written larger and on a larger background. I think it would seem a godsend to read these first and then examine the smaller ones to see if they were the same.’
‘I’m all for that,’ said Adeimantus, ‘but what relevance here do you perceive in our search for ‘the just’?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said,
‘Do we talk sometimes of a justice of an individual person, and sometimes
perhaps of a whole city-state too?’
‘Certainly,’ he said.
‘And of course a state
is something larger than one person?’
‘Yes it is,’ he said.
‘In which case justice
may be of a greater scale in the larger context and be easier to
understand. If you wish then, let’s
firstly try to find out what kind of a ting it is in states, then let’s examine
it in this way in each individual too by looking closely at the resemblance of
the greater in the form of the lesser.’”
(Plato, The Republic, translated by Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013, pages 159-161, 368c-369a, ISBN: 9780674996502)
3.1 I understand this quote, and the quote from the Laws that I posted last week, as Plato explaining to readers how to read his Dialogue, that the Republic has a layered structure with both individual and societal implications and meanings. This is also what the passage from the Laws is telling us to do.
3.2 It would be helpful to look at the Dialogues and see where Plato offers this kind of instruction on how to read the Dialogues. I think it shows Plato as being concerned that readers may not understand the layered approach Plato takes and for that reason Plato makes it clear in passages like the one from the Laws and from the Republic. This shows Plato being transparent about his writing technique and his purposes.
3.3 One of the consequences that these quotes leads us to is that Plato is writing in such a way so as to point to a sense of unity in disparate aspects of our lives that we tend to overlook. In a sense, Plato is pointing to unity so that we can get a ‘taste’ of unity as a prelude to our ascending to the Unity of the One.
3.4 In both quoted passages Plato points to different levels of the human experience, individual experience and larger social contexts, and then links them by pointing to a fundamental unity that we have failed to perceive or understand. This approach is helpful to keep in mind when we read the Dialogues and other Platonic works, and also as a technique that can be applied to our own lives and interactions.
4. The Solstice Sun
I and a few friends went out into the desert, not very far, to watch the June Solstice Sun rise over the eastern mountain range yesterday morning (21 June 2026). This is something I have been doing for a few years and I find it an enriching meditation.
On this June Solstice Morning the conditions could not have been more perfect. There were no clouds and there was a modest breeze that kept the summer insects away. The desert fauna spread out before us. In the distance was a row of Palm Trees that line a road going to a desert trailer park. Further in the distance is the eastern mountain range. Behind us is the western mountain range which is much higher and steeper than the range to the east. Because the western range is so high, it catches the morning light before the sun rises over the eastern mountains; that’s the first sign that sunrise is near. The light on the western range slowly descends, sliding down the mountains, until the whole western range is in morning light before the sun ascends over the top of the eastern range for those of us standing on the valley floor.
When the sun appeared over the eastern mountains it felt like a symphony of recognition. We bowed and offered silent thanks.
I was inspired to engage in this kind of practice by Plotinus, particularly the passage found at Ennead V.5.8. You might want to spend some time with this passage; I always find it inspiring.
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