Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 99

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

And fiends nail timebombs to the hands of the clocks

Call me any name you like I will never deny it

Farewell, Angelina, the sky is erupting

I must go where it’s quiet.

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. 

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 58

4 August 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 58

1.  I was working on Blogging Platonism Volume 3, which covers all of 2024 in book form, and I noticed a post I made on 10 January 2024 which is called “Third Things.”  It covers the exact same material that I posted last week on “Brief Notes on Various Topics 57.2.”  The topic is the status of the gods in ancient Greece and the contrast between the way poets like Homer and Hesiod treat the gods and the way Plato and subsequent Platonists treat the gods.  When I say that both posts cover ‘the same topic’, this applies even to the passage I quoted from The Republic: Book II.

I hadn’t remembered posting about this topic in January 2024.  There are some differences between the two posts; the January 2024 post is much longer and brings in material from Proclus and Plotinus.  The post last week is not so thorough.

I have repeated things before on this blog, but as far as I can remember it was repeating a general topic such as the nature of the One, or the nature of the noetic.  There is a lot to cover and contemplate when considering realities like these.  I also have a number of posts that share a common ethical focus, such as non-harming.

When I first noticed how closely related the two posts based on the quote from Book II of The Republic were I thought of removing last week’s post.  If I was writing a treatise and getting it published, no doubt an editor would do something like that. 

But this blog is not a treatise, nor is it an academic presentation.  It is more like a diary; the diary of a Platonist and how he relates to the world and how he engages with and applies Platonism in the life he is living.

So I decided to leave both posts as they are and accept that at times I will return to topics and insights that may repeat points previously raised.  It’s like a piece of music where passages get repeated.  And Platonism has many songs.

2.         I’m living in another country,

            I’m bound to cross the line.

            Beauty walks a razor’s edge

            Someday I’ll make it mine.

           Bob Dylan – Shelter from the Storm

Bob Dylan is one of the greatest poets of the post-WWII period.  My own writing has been influenced by his use of syntax, rhyme, parallelisms, and use of images.  Dylan isn’t a Platonist, but at times I find images in his songs that are strikingly relevant to a Platonic world view.  The above is an example.

To be a Platonist is to ‘live in another country’ in the sense that once a Platonist glimpses higher realities a feeling arises that one doesn’t really belong in this material dimension.  One’s true country is ‘there,’ as Plotinus likes to put it.

The Platonist practitioner crosses the line to the ‘there’ of higher realities; there is a kind of barrier between the material realm and the non-material realms.  This line is crossed through the purification of asceses, wisdom, and contemplation. 

My favorite line in this song is the one that says ‘beauty walks a razor’s edge someday I’ll make it mine.’  I think Dylan is in tune with beauty.  Both Plotinus and Plato write a lot about beauty and how following beauty to its source is one of the ways a Platonist practitioner can cross the line to the transcendental.

3.  Continuing with the postings of the Sentences by Porphyry, here is the Fourth Sentence:

Things essentially incorporeal, are not present with bodies, by hypostasis and essence; for they are not mingled with bodies.  But they impart a certain power which is proximate to bodies, through verging towards them.  For tendency constitutes a certain secondary power proximate to bodies.  (Thomas Taylor)

The incorporeal in itself does not become present to the body in “being” nor in hypostatic form of existence.  It does not mingle with the body.  Nevertheless, by its inclination to the body, it begets and communicates to it a potentiality capable of uniting with the body.  Indeed, the inclination of the incorporeal constitutes a second nature [the irrational soul - Guthrie’s addition], which unites with the body.  (Kenneth Guthrie)

Non-material beings are not present and do not mix with material bodies because of their essence, but because of a certain force arising from their interaction, and through this force they can influence the material.

After all, the interaction itself creates a secondary force that can act on material bodies and is closer to them.  (Isaak Samarskyi)

3.1  One of the difficulties with reading Sentences is that Porphyry’s writing in this work remains abstract.  I mean that Porphyry does not illustrate the Sentences with examples, or with stories (myths, legends, things like that), or with comparisons such as metaphors.  Nor is there the kind of conversational context that is found in Plato’s Dialogues.  This differs from some of Porphyry’s writings, such as On Abstinence; but Porphyry was capable of a wide range of philosophical writing and we have to accept the Sentences as they are.

3.2  I think that this sentence would be clearer to me if I understood why it is important for Porphyry to establish that non-material beings do not interact with material beings.  I suspect that he may be contrasting his view with that of other Platonists of his time and Porphyry wants to clarify his own views on this topic; but I’m not sure of that.

3.2.1  It occurs to me that Porphyry may have Aristotle in mind; I mean that Porphyry may be differentiating his own view from that of Aristotle.  Porphyry was very well read in Aristotle’s works; see his work on Aristotle’s Categories.  You could say that Aristotle had the idea that incorporeal things, such as Platonic forms, mingled with material objects, as opposed to Plato’s view that they inhabit distinct hypostases.  Porphyry does not reference Aristotle in Sentences so this is speculative.

3.3  Perhaps Porphyry is alluding to the process of emanation and how it works.  It would seem that Porphyry may be distinguishing between how material things interact with each other from how non-material things impact, or influence in some way, material things. 

Material things influence each other by ‘mingling’ or one might say by ‘bumping into each other’ or otherwise interacting; all of this occurring at the material level.  Porphyry points out the non-material things differ from material things by hypostatic placement, and therefore their ‘being’ or ‘essence’, which Porphyry suggests excludes the kind of mingling that is observed when material things influence, impact, or otherwise connect with other material things. 

Porphyry offers that non-material beings have a ‘secondary power’ and it is through this ‘secondary power’ that they have a presence and, one might say, influence, or impact, on material beings.  When I read ‘secondary power’ it reminded me of the way Orthodox Theology talks about God’s ‘energies.’  It’s also possible to understand ‘secondary power’ as a power that is not central to incorporeal beings, but nevertheless manifests from incorporeal beings; think of the primary power of the sun is to provide light and the secondary power of the sun is to provide warmth.  Or think of the primary power of prayer is to facilitate connection to the transcendental and a secondary power of prayer is to bring a sense of calm to one’s life. 

3.4  Porphyry is clarifying how non-material beings are present to, and interact with, material beings.  This is not easy to understand.  Contemplating this Sentence, and the previous Sentence 3, is a good way to enter into an understanding of how this happens.

4.  There is an aspect of the Platonic practices of ethical restraint, or ascesis, which I would like to see emphasized more often.  And that is that the practices of ethical restraint are a cultivation that grows over time.  I think that people tend to think of asceses as states rather than cultivations.  Take, for example, the teaching on non-harming, or refraining from harming others.  In India this is known as ‘ahimsa’ and is the first ethical restraint in a number of Dharmic traditions such as Classical Yoga, Jainism, and Buddhism.  I also think of it as the first ethical restraint in Platonism.  ‘First’ in this context means that other ethical restraints can be understood as the application of non-harming to specific situations or domains of human activity. 

As a cultivation, ethical restraints can begin with easily accessible applications.  For example, can you refrain from killing every single person in a city?  Almost everyone would say that they could; but there are people for whom this first step in non-harming would be difficult to adhere to.  And there are some people who would consider such an endeavor as a duty and obligation under certain circumstances such as military strife.  It may seem that this application of non-harming is obvious, and for most people it is; even so, it is a first step in cultivating non-harming.

From there the Platonist practitioner can apply non-harming and non-retaliation to less obvious situations.  Things like name-calling, or sabotaging someone else’s plans. 

And non-harming can be expanded to other kinds of living beings such as animals; to the extent that non-harming is a Platonic teaching it is also a teaching that opposes slaughtering animals either for ritual sacrifice or for eating.

Applying non-harming to situations in our life at first might feel a bit awkward because we are not used to it and because it is not a principle of ethics in the larger world that we inhabit.  After some time, though, the cultivation of non-harming becomes a kind of internalized way of living in the world and blossoms in a surprising number of circumstances.

The same applies to other Platonic asceses such as restraining sexual impulses, the rejection of intoxicants, the reduction in the number of possessions and so forth.  Each of these ethical restraints are means for separating the soul from the body; the goal of the philosopher according to the dialogue Phaedo. 

5.  In a way this fifth part of today’s post is a continuation of the fourth part, but I wanted to treat it as a separate item.  What I want to comment on here is that asceticism, the cultivation of ethical restraints, is often experienced as a great joy.  Because in our contemporary world we rarely meet a practicing ascetic we have little to no experience with how ascetics feel about their own lives.  When examining the literature I have found that ascetics are often profoundly happy with their circumstances and their choice to become an ascetic.  This baffles people who are fixated on material acquisitions and other material goals.  But it’s true.  I have read about this even in the lives of what I would call lay renunciants or monastics; people who follow a strict program of asceses but are not affiliated with any specific institutional religious or spiritual group.  For example, in the book Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics, published in 1986, the author, Marsha Sinetar, surveyed a large number of such people and found them to be happy about, and satisfied with, their choices in life.

I’m not saying there are no difficulties in the life of an ascetic.  Perhaps the most often mentioned difficulty is loneliness; but it seems to be the case that ascetics eventually find ways of dealing with this.

A barrier to becoming an ascetic is that it is often referred to as very difficult, particularly in our modern and materialistic world.  But as a friend of mine who is a Platonist Monk said, “So what if it’s difficult?  There are lots of things in life that are difficult, but we do them anyway.”  Learning how to throw a javelin is difficult, learning calculus is difficult, learning how to bake an excellent cake is difficult, and so forth.  The program of Platonist asceticism, of ethical renunciations, can be a challenge, but it is a practice that is profoundly satisfying.

6.  I never tire of reading the Enneads of Plotinus.  I was reading Ennead V.1 the other day, “On the Three Primary Hypostases” and parts of it are among the finest spiritual writing I have ever come across.  The clarity, the way Plotinus will unpack the meaning of a term like ‘soul’ or ‘hypostasis’ is simply unsurpassed.

I have benefitted greatly from the writings of many Platonists, including Plutarch, Alcinous, Maximus of Tyre, Porphyry, Boethius, and so forth.  But my feeling is that Plotinus soars above, and beyond, what they offer. 

The Enneads are an ocean of wisdom and a sure guide to eternity.