I'd like to make an official thread about Plotinus so here's one.
Since many years i'm attracted by religion, mysticism, mystic philosophy like Vedanta, and stuff... I've been interesting in Orthodox Christianity, sufism, and else for a lot of time because muh mystic god.
Maybe one and a half year ago i've discovered Plotinos ( his greek name in biography ) and i litteraly fell in love with him, it took me a lot of time to read and understand him, but this man is litteraly diamond.
I think he was the smartest guy of late antiquity ( because this century was shitty, you know, with gnostics and all else ). He managed to gather the best of platonism, aristotelicism, stoicism in one monistic rational spiritual and poetic philsophy. And his thought is so optimistic ! No sin ! No hell ! No right and wrong ! Everything is already given to us, the One is already inside of us, all we need to do is to change our consciousness, to get the real right divine view that allows us to the intellect and, finally, the One himself.
For years I've been looking for spirituality in order to fullfill my empty life, but not with christianity, not with islam, hinduism, bouddhism or else.
Today and forever, i know that my wholre life belongs to the philosophy of Plotinos, this man gave me every answer i've been always looking for.
Please, read this man and don't forget what he said, he's worth it.
And sorry for language, english is not my native tong.
been reading Enneads after some light exposure to his philosophy. reading his work with a solid background in mysticism/religion has been fucking awesome.
he's probably one of the smartest individuals I've ever, ever read, the guy is a treasure. he really was on to something. i don't think i have a single problem with any of his philosophy anywhere
Nice blog. Subscribed.
What stuck out to me while reading his Enneads:
>the soul is only evil "when it thinks the body's thoughts"
>the soul understood almost as a shaft of light that falls on matter, as an impersonal, "natural" process, and less some vague force with aims and aspirations of its own (except for the Good)
>Happiness as being not a life of pleasure, but living life through and in "the faculty competent enough to announce pleasure's value [in the first place]", in other words, unconditional happiness stems from being grateful for even being alive in the first place, and being able to apprehend this life's transcendent Source
>on evil being more like Murphy's Law than the devil
>chronic pain in the virtuous man: "And so in all his pain he asks not pity: there is always the radiance in the inner soul of man, untroubled like the light in a lantern when fierce gusts beat about it in a wild turmoil of wind and tempest."
>Absolute evil being "utter dearth", the "ever-needy", compared to the Good, which is totally "self-sufficing, self-possessed"
>"There is no power that can wrest anything of its distinct nature."
>>791590
That's what is awesome with him, he gives you answer but he's not dogmatic, you can believe him or question him, but you feel always peaceful because you know you can trust him, his whole biography explain us how godlike he was.
And his philosophy can be read with most of oriental religions, you can read Vedanta and Plotinus without contradictions, you can do it with bouddhism, with taoism and else.
And he's also a part of our spiritual legacy, he looks like oriental guru, but he always saw his only as a commentator of greek philosophers, it like european shit going into zen and else.
>>791583
>sufism
Wait is Islam popular with New Age kinda people in the west now?
>>791636
>dude new age lmao
god i hate this meme
>>791583
Have a copy of the Enneads laying around. What should I expect?
>>791682
Just read him and it will enlight your mind.
>it's a 'spiritually bankrupt people shopping for a religion' episode
>>791688
>organized religion
cheers for the kek m8
Bump, don't tell me I'm the only one who likes Plotinus
I posted the following on /x/, but it was, let's say, underappreciated, and sandwiched as it were by comments about recreational use of hallucinogenic substances.
>>791876
ive been posting neoplatonism threads constantly and except for one or two anons who seem interested/get it, the rest is memes
>>791890
Indeed, Socrates in the [First] Alcibiades rightly observes, that the soul entering into herself
will behold all other things, and deity itself. For verging to her own union, and to the center
of all life, laying aside multitude, and the variety of all manifold powers which she contains,
she ascends to the highest watchtower of beings.
And as in the most holy of the mysteries, they say, that the mystics at first meet with the
multiform, and manyshaped
[i.e., evil daemons] genera, which are hurled forth before the
Gods, but on entering the interior parts of the temple, unmoved, and guarded by the mystic
rites, they genuinely receive in their bosom divine illumination, and divested of their
garments, as they would say, participate of a divine nature; the
same mode, as it appears to
me, takes place in the speculation of wholes.
Plotinus hated his own body. If he were alive today he would be a post-op tranny
>>791896
For the soul when looking at things posterior to herself, beholds the shadows and images of
beings, but when she converts herself to herself she evolves her own essence, and the reasons
which she contains. And at first indeed, she only as it were beholds herself;
but, when she penetrates more profoundly into the knowledge of herself, she finds in herself
both intellect, and the orders of beings. When however, she proceeds into her interior
recesses, and into the adytum [holy of holies, inner sanctum] as it were of the soul, she
perceives with her eye closed, the genus of the Gods, and the unities of beings. For all things
are in us psychically, and through this we are naturally capable of knowing all things, by
exciting the powers and the images of wholes which we contain.
And this is the best employment of our energy, to be extended to divine nature itself, having
our powers at rest, to revolve harmoniously round it, to excite all the multitude of the soul to
this union, and laying aside all such things as are posterior to the one, to become seated and
conjoined with that which is ineffable, and beyond all things.
Proclus, On The Theology of Plato. Trans. Thomas Taylor
>>791896
plotinus makes everything sound so fucking heroic and sacred and shit
>>791890
do you have a link of the thread oon /x/ ?
How is this different than Hegelian Idealism?
>>791919
Hegel believed reason would reveal the Absolute; Plotinus believes it's a mix of intuition and aesthetic contemplation
>>791896
>>791900
Proclus and Plotinus are on pretty much the same level
The difference is that Proclus was much more committed to traditional spirituality
He got initiated into pretty much all of the mystery schools of late antiquity
He's not as compatible with Christianity as Plotinus but he's based as fuck
>>791938
Also according to plotinus, our soul is divided between the material world and the intellect and you have to concentrate to the part of your soul that is in the intellect. For Proclus, the whole has fallen into into the material world and you need to call the gods in order to help you to reach the One.
>>791947
Proclus has a darker view on the problem of evil, as well. He's not as bright and cheery as Plotinus I've heard
OP are you reading the Enneads in English? Which translation?
>>791956
I'm french, I read it in french and I speak about him in english on internet because no one fucking know him in France except my philosophy's teachers.
>>791965
I know that feel m8.
Even on the internet it's tough to find good reading on Plotinus
>>791974
which country are you from ?
I'm fighting to find some website on plotunis on the internet. I got some blogs, but most of them are facebook's groups
>>791985
America. I'm reading the MacKenna translation, very poetic.
Here's some shit you might like:
http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=6095
http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=6103
https://networkologies.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/the-philosophy-of-the-future-plotinus-as-dynamic-set-theorist-of-the-virtual-realy/
Plato = Plotinus
Same person.
>>792043
Plotinus = Plato leaving politic for a better theology.
>>792052
They were the same person.
>>792057
One soul in two differents body you mean.
>>792066
"Plato", and "Plotinus", are two different names for the same person.
Do you get it now?
>>792096
No? Are you ok m8?
>>792096
is that some kind of joke ? If yes i already heard it several times.
>>792102
What joke? I'm telling you, they are the same person.
>>792109
>tfw you can never have a decent neoplatonism discussion
>>792116
Not with mentally narrow unthinking morons who are not even curious to know the reason behind statements that clash with their preconceived notions.
>>792116
>tfw you've had a couple
>tfw they were on 4chan
Plato = Plotinus = Gemistus Pletho
>>792096
How can you claim that? They lived like 600 years apart.
>>792168
The chronology is wrong, creating multiple parallel events, people, and persons.
>>792176
Nice. Care to provide evidence or an argument?
Bump for Plotinus.
What do you think of Aristotle?
