Brief Notes on Various Topics - 105

17 August 2026

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 105

1.  The Crisis of Quietism

Now and then I search YouTube using the key words ‘Quietism’ and ‘Quietists’ because I want to see if anyone has posted something new on that topic.  There are not a lot of posts about Quietism and often when I search nothing new has been posted.  But now and then there is something new.

There was a period in my life when I studied the Quietists of the 17^th century; people like Miguel de Molinos, Madame Guyon, Archbishop Fenelon, Francois Malaval, and other more minor participants in that short-lived spiritual movement.  I still find their works attractive and insightful.

It is instructive that there are more than a few posts that criticize the ‘heresy’ of Quietism.  This is because, after an initial period of acceptance and even encouragement, the Catholic Church declared Quietism to be a dangerous heresy and suppressed the movement and its writings.  I think the main reason for the suppression of Quietism is that the Church came to the conclusion that Quietism undermined the place that rituals and practices such as the Eucharist and Rosary, have in the lives and practice of the Church and, further, that this would undermine the role of Priests and other Hierarchs.

There is some truth to this view; for example, there were documented instances where nuns stopped the practice of the rosary and instead practiced the prayer of interior silence.  I see this as a shift from meditation with a cultivation of mental focus, to contemplation which, using the Quietists’ mode of expression, lifts the soul to the presence of God who is beyond and prior to all forms. 

This step from a spiritual practice that is, in some sense, based on material realities, to the contemplation of that which transcends material realities is a difficult one.  I think this is understandable.  To let go of, to separate the soul from, all material realities, including intellectual or mental realities, is a simple but subtle practice.  The experience of the fully transcendental is sublime, but it is also unstable.  Plotinus writes about this, describing how his experience of the One ends with a return to the body, how the pull of the body makes stabilization of the experience of the transcendental delicate. 

It has been my experience that in many instances when people are introduced to the idea of contemplation that transcends all bodily and material reality, it is hard to understand what they are being asked to do.  That was my initial experience with contemplation.  The instructions for contemplation are not complex, but it is often difficult for people to understand how to actually do it and how to know that their practice has been fruitful.

There is another dimension to this difficulty and that is that material practices, or sensory based practices, can be the basis for constructing an institution; some of these institutions have great power by possessing a particular sensory practice.  Institutions are reluctant to allow for something that is ‘beyond’ their range of power and because of this there is a tendency to view such a practice as contemplation negatively.

Platonism is not immune from this tension.  Although a writer like Plotinus is remarkably clear about stepping into the beyond that is beyond being, beyond intellect or nous, not all subsequent Platonists agree with this kind of presentation (see especially Ennead VI).  Some Platonists after Plotinus directly attacked this idea and offered instead a view that it includes complex ceremonials as the ultimate means for aligning with the ultimate, and that ultimate is a bodily, material, manifestation, usually the gods.  I suspect that this kind of tension, the tension between going ‘beyond’ all material manifestation, including the manifestations of intellect, and the idea that there is a material practice that in some sense is the ultimate, is found in most spiritual traditions, if you look hard enough.

When I did my recent search on YouTube using the word ‘Quietism’, sure enough there were some new posts, or posts I hadn’t noticed before, focusing on the heretical nature of contemplation and the practice of interior silence.  For those of us who understand Platonism to be a contemplative tradition, I think that it is helpful to understand the way contemplation was treated, and is still treated, by many who have a strongly negative view of ‘separating the soul from the body.’  Understanding this tension and its sources has helped me to understand the difficult place that contemplation holds in our society today and in the world of spirituality in general.  And this understanding has helped me clarify in my own mind, what it is that contemplation offers, which is access to, and understanding of, the Good, the One, and the Beautiful, and the presence of Eternity.

2.  What is a Platonist?

I had a thought this last week; it is that a Platonist is someone who enjoys, and looks forward to, reading the Dialogues of Plato.  This probably sounds too simple, and I suppose it is.  But at another level I think it points out something about being a Platonist, or perhaps what I might refer to as the ‘activity’ of Platonism. 

A Platonist has a strong, one might say intimate, relationship to Plato’s writings.  These writings are considered to be a source of wisdom and of insight across a wide range of human activity and endeavors.  And Plato’s writings are inexhaustible which means that a Platonist can return to them and find new insights and practices each time the Platonist engages with these writings.

The closest example to this is, in my opinion, found in the Confucian tradition and how the Confucian Sage is thought of as deeply involved with the Confucian Canon of writings such as the Analects and the Great Learning and so forth.  In a similar way, a Sage in Platonism is someone who is deeply committed to a lifelong engagement with the writings of Plato.

3.  A Friend’s Comments

A friend is visiting and I am enjoying the company.  He has been reading Blogging Platonism, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 which I put together from my posts here and publish in book form, available on Amazon.  He has been enjoying them and has some good questions about some of my posts.  It’s interesting to me, and instructive, to learn what people who read the blog posts find significant and what kinds of questions arise from those posts.  It’s helpful to get that kind of feedback.