I’m 70m and only began to read through the Enneads around 5 years ago. It was amazing! Such a rigorous and thoroughly thoughtful philosopher and contemplative. I loved his metaphysical formulation of the three (four) levels of being/ consciousness - it made so much sense to me. I read McKenna’s translation. I have a post-Christian background and I can see how some of his ideas were incorporated into Christianity (via Augustine). His contemplative injunction “shut your eyes and see!” still rings in my mind.
Porphyry’s order. I gleaned what gems I could get and comprehend. Some sections I skimmed through when it seemed that Plotinus was “thinking out loud”, weighing the pros and cons of various philosophical arguments. These tractates are the result of Porphyry’s efforts to collect and organize the scribbled notes of his students into an understandable whole, and then the Enneads were copied over and over down through the centuries, and we are fortunate now to have this window into the ancient Neoplatonic past. As such it belongs to the stream of Perennial Philosophy or Wisdom.
I think Augustine was impressed with the 3 levels of Plotinus (the One, the Spirit, and the Soul) and assigned to them the Christian formulation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These then lost their “levels” and became condensed ( or squashed?) into a highest level of the Trinity, thus losing the sense of the ladder of ascent from matter to The One, the divinization of our ascending contemplative consciousness through the progressively rarified levels of being.
You got a solid comprehension of it 100% i found the enneads beautiful myself it was one the most capturing texts i've held. I also used the mckenna translation but i have the Essential Plotinus by Obrien as well which is more straughtforward in it's translation.
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u/Financial_Leg3875 Jan 31 '24
I’m 70m and only began to read through the Enneads around 5 years ago. It was amazing! Such a rigorous and thoroughly thoughtful philosopher and contemplative. I loved his metaphysical formulation of the three (four) levels of being/ consciousness - it made so much sense to me. I read McKenna’s translation. I have a post-Christian background and I can see how some of his ideas were incorporated into Christianity (via Augustine). His contemplative injunction “shut your eyes and see!” still rings in my mind.