The second stage – the Cataphatic – has purgative effects, but is more positive as one separates from reasoning itself. This can be compared to the more familiar experience of being so absorbed in reading or watching a movie that one is unaware one is reading a book or viewing a film. This stage breaks the barrier between self as knower and the object of knowing, by situating oneself at the interior of the object. At this point there is no reasoning, evaluating, or judging; only an absorbed state called pathema 5 The first and second stages lead “toward” but not “to” The One. The highest achievement in the second stage is still only envelopment in the Intellectual Principle.6 .
The third stage – Ekstasis – entails the intellect-free desire for or love of The One. By a path of introspection, our wish becomes “father to the thought,” that is a “sentiment overlaid with speculation.”7 Our soul as the source of desire, deploys the intellect and progressive eliminations so that we reach the point where there remains nothing but the assimilative capacity of intellect and where the soul becomes wholly unfettered and caught out of itself. At last the ego is penetrated by the One and fixed on the plentitude in which it shares.8 Plotinus tells us that, phenomenologically, this state is more a presence felt than a thing known – a union of the soul and the One, unconsciousness without vacuity – a stable perfect unitive.9 Other features or descriptions include self-surrender, simplicity, touching, “flight from the alone to the alone.”10 Plotinus tells us the ultimate experience of happiness for us is in this contemplation and union.
In his own words, Plotinus describes the experience and suggests its availability:
“Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentred; beholding a marvelous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within it by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever in the Intellectual is less than the Supreme; yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that descending, how did the soul ever enter into my body, the Soul which even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be.” (Enneads IV, 8, 1)11
CONCLUSION
The mystical description of ultimate reality and the path to union presented by Plotinus may appear utterly speculative and subjective to those of us more anchored to physical reality, science, and logic. 
The reader may wonder if I have entered this transcendental realm, and to answer candidly, I have not. Like you perhaps, I wonder if this is nothing more than ancient superstition. Nonetheless I believe the practical philosopher should entertain such seemingly far-flung practice, if only to be as sure as possible not miss out on what Plotinus would likely argue is the greatest meaning possible in human life. The reader will simply have to decide for himself or herself.
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5O’Brien, Elmer, The Essential Plotinus.The New American Library, New York, N.Y., 1964, page 30
6Ibid., page 22.
7Ibid., page 31.
8Ibid., page 21.
9Ibid., page 31.
10Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972. Volume 6, page 355.
12Ibid.
17Ibid.
18Ibid., page 26.
11Ayer, A.J. and O’Grady, Jane (editors), A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations. Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1994. ISBN 0-631-19478-9, page 355.
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Having trouble leaving a question or comment? E-mail me at gregoryciliberti@gmail.com
“Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful; he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also; cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is in shadow,; labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue until there shall shine out on you from it you the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness established in the stainless shrine. ” – Plotinus, Enneads.1
The first stage – the Propadeutic or Apohatic – is crossed by separation from the realm of multiplicity and entry into the realm of The Intelligence (Forms).3 It begins with withdrawal into the purified self (see introductory quote). Next comes a twofold purgation of the mind: (1) qualitative – successive transposing of the object of one’s thoughts to a plane progressively more immaterial and spiritual; more disengaged from the sense realm and more aligned with the Intelligible, and (2) quantitative – progressive detachment from the singular or individualities, separation from the changing and incidental to the immovable, essential, and fixed.4
The third hypostasis is Soul, the offspring of the Nous, and author of all things. It is double: both interior-facing and exterior-facing. Unlike Socrates and Plato, Plotinus does not see the Soul as fallen since the material world with which it is connected is a beautiful mirror of the higher realm. The Soul, including the soul of man, is not matter or form, but an eternal essence.14 All souls are incorporeal, substantial, and immortal, but a soul can be embodied or disembodied. Plotinus assumes a cosmic soul – i.e. all souls comprise one soul, with intercommunication between them occurring via extrasensory means.15
Plotinus offers two additional tenets of his metaphysics. First Nature and the World are the best logically possible and a copy of the eternal world. The cosmos then is a symbol of the eternal realm. Second, humans have free will, and one freedom of which they should partake is the ability to look within themselves to understand the higher realm.
The One is the “clef de voûte”6 of ultimate reality for Plotinus. The One is epekeina or beyond being, equivalent to Plato’s ‘the Good,’ and tantalizingly close to the theologian’s concept of God. The One is omnipresent or immanent in everything, but is itself absolutely transcendental, entirely undifferentiated and quality-less,7 and as such represents absolute simplicity. It transcends essence, thought, form, and knowledge. Plotinus also calls it ‘Unity’ because it transcends all multiplicity, however he makes clear it is not a number but the measure of number itself, “the transcendence of separability rather than the negation of plurality” to quote Dean Inge, the famous scholar of Plotinus.8 Moreover The One is not intelligence but rather awareness and self-awareness.
The Intellectual Principle – the Nous, or the Intelligence, also referred to as ‘Spirit’ by Dean Inge – is the second hypostasis, itself coming directly from the One and the image of it, or the vision of itself, the light by which it sees itself. Nous is the separate and supreme intelligence of the world of Forms. Multiplicity appears here- but the Intelligence is itself singular and corresponds to Plato’s ream of Ideas or ‘true being’, except for Plotinus this realm is not independent of Intelligence. Its realm also includes Soul and matter, number and being.
“Generative of all, The Unity is none of all; neither thing nor quantity nor quality nor intellect nor soul: not in motion, not at rest, not in place, not in time; it is the self-defined unique in form or, better, formless, existing before Form was, or Movement, or Rest, all of which are attachments of Being and make Being the manifold it is.” – Plotinus, Enneads (VI, 9, 3)1
Scholars believe Plotinus was influenced most by Plato, particularly the Phaedo, Book IV of The Republic, and his discussion on love in Symposium.4 Porphyry tells us that “by meditation and the method that Plato teaches in the Banquet,” Plotinus “lifted himself…to the first and all-transcendent divinity.”5 However Plotinus was familiar with much of the ancient Western philosophic tradition and is thought to have been influenced to a lesser extent by Parmenides, Aristotle, the Stoics, and possibly even Philo and some lesser known figures such as Albinus and Numenius. He also was aware of the Gnostics with whom he disagrees vigorously in some of his writing.
