This short treatise also introduces the reader to the Philosophy of Astrology. It will serve as an introduction to those that are about to read it, and hopefully help those that have already read it. The leap from early Greek philosophy to modern cosmology remains a theory, but science may yet stumble upon the proof--which ought to come with further research, and space exploration.
The system of Plotinus is not often clearly understood by people with little knowledge of philosophical expositions that attempt to describe so called reality. Even the term Reality is vague and confusing depending on who is using it for what purpose. For the scientist, a hypothesis that can be proven, or the deductive logic of mathematics, best describes reality. For many philosophers, reality is defined through mental constructs that explain our world of experience. It is mental phenomena based on an apprehension of what we come to understand about life, nature, and the universe. Some believe that creation implies a creator in whose mind creation is realized; others that creation presupposes the Idea that gave rise to it, which reality demands to explain our existence.
We tend to acknowledge that there are three basic concepts upon which we ground our views of reality: mind, matter, and energy. We can explain just about anything with these three ideas; leave any one of them out, and reality as we know it can't exist.
Plotinus doesn't leave matter out of his system, but it's the last thing to come into being after the first two hypostases. The First Hypostasis--The One--is the supreme source of everything in the universe--hence fundamental; it is ultimately a mental entity of one sort or another. Of course, nobody can conceive of what or where it might be, and Plotinus accepts this when he says it is unknowable; we can only say what it's not--not what it is. Understandably, people find this idea uncomfortable, it's comparable to the Christian God that is beyond all comprehension. The Bible doesn't bother to say anymore than God created the firmament, then the world, then life, then us. Easy--for God, and as much as His mentally limited creatures ever need to know, according to some.
Whether we accept or reject Plotinus' system, he deserves credit for allowing us to look into his inner revelations, or mystical experiences, and attempting to explain them through the opportunity of seeing inwardly what appeared to him to be a reflection of outer reality. It is as though in being able to apprehend his Soul, or the spiritual ground of his being, as a logically organized structure, he at once recognizes the outer form of a much greater Spiritual source, and identifies with it as creation, and the ONE, or God.
If Plotinus is correct in his inner perceptions, then it is highly possible that God and man are in essence the same, but exist in different, or over-lapping realities, which the three hypostases do describe. If God and man exist in different realities physically, then they must share in the same spiritual realm as described by Plotinus. Physical man lives in the world of matter as a mental-spiritual being, and the ONE as a spiritual-mental entity would by necessity be grounded in some aspect of the real universe, or physical reality. Thus, Plotinus took what he had experienced within his Soul, and projected it upon the heavens, the result was the system in which all reality participates, at least that's what he thought since he had no way to judge fixed reference points in the cosmos. It is now possible to show how his system might work in light of the modern world, and our expanding knowledge of the universe.
The problem with Plotinus' system is that it doesn't seem to conform to anything out there that we have come to understand about the makeup of our universe. Plotinus lived way before the advent of the telescope, and people would still be debating whether the world was round or flat for another thousand years. They had come to distinguish between the planets that were observed to move, and the fixed stars that didn't. If nothing else, it was the home of the blessed Gods. Plotinus, nor anyone of his time, knew about galaxies or solar systems. The universe is teeming with a multitude of objects both seen and unseen, but there doesn't seem to be any center or source that would account for everything else. So where would the ONE fit into this hodgepodge? It is well known that the solar system is a very small piece in a very large puzzle that's still full of mysteries, and from our perspective on this planet the solar system is immense. Plotinus couldn't have imagined the size and complexity of the universe, much less the size and complexity of the solar system, and it wasn't until the sixteenth century when Copernicus showed that the sun does not orbit the earth that the idea of a solar system became acceptable.
In his system the Third Hypostasis is the World Soul, and the place where matter takes form, and life assumes its divine source. That couldn't be any other place than the planet Earth. The World Soul in its higher realm of thought, or spiritual movement, partakes and participates as an aspect of the Second Hypostasis, or Intellectual Sphere, as does the Intellectual Sphere with the ONE. Indeed, the three hypostases envelop and contain each other, with the ONE at the center. Step outside the solar system and look back, and you need look no further for the physical counterpart of Plotinus' metaphysical system. The ONE corresponds to the sun; the Intellectual Sphere to the planets, and the World Soul to the Earth. Conversely, If living self-aware creatures on this planet have been brought into being for the express purpose of embodying the Divine plan as written in the structures of the heavens, then those structures must share the same design. The difference is rather than looking outward to the physical heavens, one turns inward to find the spiritual makeup of the soul. The archetype of the macrocosm is an image of the microcosm, and the archetype of the microcosm is an image of the macrocosm--depending on your frame of reference.
One of the questions that enters the minds of serious thinkers is the relationship between the inner revelatory experience of one person versus the actual make up of a spiritual universe. The answer is that many people have had a religious experience, but through personal, cultural, and religious differences, the languages used and distinctions cited are often blurred. Plotinus, being trained in philosophical thinking and dialogue, has had a measure of success in outlining what his inner perceptions have shown him. There are places in his own words that describe the motion of objects around a central source, a powerful shining source. Plotinus equates this with the ONE; not in any intellectual sense, but as a profoundly moving revelation that the God without is manifest within as the source of his being, and that this source embodies a distinct form. He likens it to a penetration into the inner sanctuary of the soul in its divine glory where all becomes known in its clarity and beauty.
What Plotinus seems to be saying is that within the environs of the sun and planets, whether it be magnetic fields, gravitational forces, or cosmic rays, there is a mental element associated with these massive bodies that we are totally unaware of, and it's likely not unique to our special place in the universe. All we can ever know about the mind is from our own perspective, which is connected to organs of perception that convey information about the physical world. We've learned that thought is an element of the brain, and that without the brain, thought is not possible. If this were true, then death of the organism would be death of the psyche; along with the psyche would go belief in an afterlife, heaven and hell, and even God would be out of a job.
I think Plotinus would agree that omniscience is a characteristic of the ONE, despite its unknowability. It would be a state in which thought is not a stream of ideas rolling from one concept to another, but a condition of knowledge existing all at once in every instant of time. All thought is summed in a total unity, a unity without distinction or differentiation. We think linearly through time of one thing then another, the ONE thinks pictorially instantly of everything. The three hierarchies or hypostases are always in contact through their respective movements; it might be said that the ONE steps down its power to the Second Hypostasis through its lower movement, while the Second Hypostasis receives what it can from the ONE through its higher movement. In the same manner, the Second Hypostasis in its lower movement is in contact with the higher movement of the Third Hypostasis. It's within this range or over-lapping of the hypostases that a dispensation occurs. Thought from the ONE now takes on individuality within the Second Hypostasis, the Intellectual Sphere, and individual ideas become unique entities all "awake and alive." This is the realm of Plato's Forms. The Earth, or third hypostasis, as a member of the Intellectual Realm, brings ratiocination, or exact thinking and reasoning, down to actuality. Words denoting concepts such as Justice and Goodness now have meaning and are within reach of the understanding. Higher sentient creatures of the Third Hypostasis communicate and knowledge grows.
The Creator and man do share one thing; that's a Creative Mind, and the creative mind needs a power base to bring anything into being. The scale of course would be immense. To build a house one needs saws, hammers, and enough muscle to follow through with the plans on the blueprints. To build a tree, for instance, the Creator requires tremendous amounts of power such as that given off by a star. Materials are gathered together in a spot deemed appropriate for the beginning of life, and through time, with a good deal of hit and miss, the PLAN eventually begins to unfold, from lesser to more sophisticated beings taking on the qualities and characteristics of the original blueprint. One can even speculate that life is bestowed through Spirit, and Spirit is generated through new life adding psychic energy to the universe. Who knows, maybe it's even adding to the expansion of the universe. Science has recently demonstrated that the proto-cells necessary for life are generated within the environment of hot young stars, not to mention all the elements necessary for life from exploded stars.
Many primitive cultures are naturally led to believe that the sun possesses certain qualities that make it uniquely special in the over-all picture of creation. Indeed, look around and take in all the things that are directly, and indirectly, associated with the sun. Sometimes it helps to let go of the narrow vision of an ego-centric mind to appreciate the possibility that Spirit may be found in places other than the exalted state of mankind. It's not just found in the nature religion of early nomadic people, but also in advanced cultures such as the Egyptian dynasty of Akhenaten, and the fabled City of the Sun; also in the writings of the Roman Emperor Julian in his "Hymn to Apollo." Attempts to persuade hard headed empiricists that the sun is more than a burning bag of gas usually fail due to the fact that people once prayed, and ritualized an object that could no more interact with them than a rock. This is not to say that great spiritual beings in our system don't inter-relate through direct intervention when deemed necessary, but that's another area of study best left to the reader.
Of special interest to those with scientific minds is a mystery of the cosmos that astronomers and cosmologists can't solve. For many years it was called Dark Matter, but recently has taken on the name of Dark Energy. A discovery many years ago found that were it not for some strange gravitational substance, galaxies would fly apart. Further studies indicated that this substance had to make up at least ninety percent of the mass of the universe. In a sense, this mystery has scientists admitting that all they have ever studied and known about the world and the universe amounts to around ten percent of reality. It might be possible to account for the missing mass by posing a simple hypothesis that would also solve a riddle that has defied explanation since man built his first temple to the Gods. The question of whether there is an after life, and what the nature of that life might be has never been answered. It's one reason so many religious opinions vary as to the exact nature of a spiritual existence apart from the body. Theosophists believe that the solar system is the spiritual home for souls between life experiences. Each planet has its own vibrational character, and souls sojourn in each of those environments on the path of spiritual growth and development. These heavenly worlds have been called the astral planes, and if this reality exists, then one can ask what the nature of these worlds might be. It can't be just nothing; it must be something, and this something has come to be known by many names: ectoplasm, pneuma, Nous, soul, spirit, self, ego, mental stuff, mind flux, etc. It's just possible that mind may have varying degrees of density throughout the cosmos as does matter, and thereby have potential for gravitational force. If ninety percent of the mass of the universe is substance of a mental nature, then Plato was right when he said that the ultimate nature of reality is mind.
If the preceding observation has any truth at all, then what astrologers have been saying can't all be wrong. They may not be right about everything they claim, but if the planets and sun are indeed ensouled in some unfathomable way, then we indeed do live in a spiritual universe. That point of pure white light that mystics seek within the center of their being may be the counterpart of the solar logos that gave rise to life, and nurtures it everyday. If the astrological qualities of each of the planets, including sun and moon, were to be consolidated into one composite being, then this entity would have all the characteristics of a human being. Skeptics will claim that early astrologers projected human qualities unto the planets; there maybe some truth to this also as these archetypes or symbols have become very powerful in the collective unconscious of the human race. Whether a spiritual universe exists is based on theory, yet astrological principles exist whether planet centered, or people centered.
Mankind requires a life founded on religious beliefs. It is not necessary that those beliefs be true, only that they satisfy the needs of those seeking a higher power. Religious beliefs are as diverse as the people that hold them, whether they are right or wrong is not something to be fought over, but respected. The ideas presented here stand in support of all religious ideologies, and has been termed Sidereal Theology. One of the main differences is that Sidereal Theology doesn't require worship of any kind, primarily because it isn't needed.
It has been said that the loftiest attainment of the human species is the quest for knowledge; without it progress falters and civilizations fall or wither away. The mystic understands that within the Godhead infinite wisdom is backed up by powers that stagger the imagination; they appear to us as tiny points of light in the heavens. If life is the channel and spirit the source, then it might not be too far amiss to say that "Wisdom Powers the Universe."
On the other hand, maybe the universe is just a bauble on the end of God's key chain. If that's the case, then our discussion ends here, and we might as well let the scientists discover what's left to know about reality.
A note from the ascended masters that involves us all:
". . . . Now the tear is in the eye of the soul as the soul contemplates how many cycles have turned since the fond embrace and the fond good bye. And the time has come for the return! The fire burns on the hearth of Home. Brothers and sisters are waiting. Angels tarry at the gate, looking longingly into the heavens and into the planes of Matter, searching for prodigal son and daughter, searching to see the soul appearing as a fiery glow in the distant scene--angels waiting to announce the homecoming of a soul, of souls, of lifewaves, of planetary evolutions and solar systems. And so in the fiery core of being, we anticipate the wholeness of love when all will be found in the oneness of unity, when all will know that the rays of our oneness have fashioned the myriad paths back to God, manifest in the Great Central Sun."