Mnemonics

A course on Platonism, from Plato’s early writings to late Platonic theurgy, and notes on the cultivation of inner peace.

Course Platonism

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

Plato asserts that sensory experiences are distorted. True knowledge means escaping the illusion in order to grasp the unchanging world of the forms that lies beyond sensory perception.

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Plato’s Idealism

Plato argues that knowledge requires an immutable foundation. The sensible world constantly changes and contradicts itself, so true knowledge must exist in a separate world to provide metaphysical stability.

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Plato’s Timaeus

In his Timaeus, Plato describes a transcendent creator of the universe who forms individual souls and incorporates them into the cosmic order. A righteous life enables them to return to their kindred star after death.

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Plato’s Form of the Good

In his Republic, Plato introduces the form of the good as the first principle of reality. Platonists would later identify the good as the one, the ultimate source from which all things proceed.

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Plotinus’ Hypostases

Plotinus proposed three hypostases: the one, nous, and psyche. Nous and psyche arise from the one through emanation, and they strive for a return to the source through desire and deficiency.

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Henosis

Plotinus taught that the soul can achieve union with the one through contemplation, Iamblichus considered theurgy necessary, and Proclus united both as complementary paths.

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Theurgy and the Henads

Iamblichus established theurgy as the means of achieving henosis, and Proclus integrated it into a comprehensive metaphysical system in which it serves as the consummation of philosophy.

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Platonic Origins of Alchemy

Empedocles identified four primordial substances of matter, Plato gave them geometric structures, and Aristotle explained how opposites combine to form physical matter, making alchemical transmutation possible.

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Practice Inner Peace

Stress Management

Our bodies have evolved to withstand short-term stress, but the demands of modern life require constant vigilance: chronic stressors never completely disappear, leaving no time for genuine rest.

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Practice Inner Peace

Deep Breathing Exercises

Eleven curated deep breathing exercises, designed to release tension and calm body and mind. The techniques range from seated breathing exercises to standing stretches, for daily relaxation or stress reduction.

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Course Platonism

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

A relatively well-known idea of Plato is his allegory of the cave, which appears in his work Republic. In this allegory, Plato describes people who have spent their entire lives in a cave, chained by their necks and ankles to an inner wall, facing an empty outer wall.

They observe shadows being projected onto the outer wall, by objects carried behind the inner wall by people invisible to the chained prisoners. These object bearers walk behind the inner wall with a fire behind them, creating the shadows on the outer wall for the prisoners. The object bearers speak the names of the objects, the sounds of which are echoed near the shadows and are understood by the prisoners as if they were coming from the shadows themselves.

Only the shadows and sounds are the prisoners’ reality, which aren’t accurate representations of true reality. The shadows represent distorted and blurred copies of the reality that we can perceive with our senses. The goal, then, is to free oneself from the cave by realizing that the shadows on the outer wall aren’t true reality, but merely a reflection or interpretation.

What Hides Beyond the Veil

The allegory is related to Plato’s theory of forms, according to which the world of the forms (and not the world we know through our senses) possesses the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. According to this theory, the forms are the nonphysical, timeless, absolute, and unchangeable essences of all things, which objects and matter in the sensible world merely imitate, resemble, or participate in.

The forms are perfect and unchanging representations of objects and qualities. For example: the form of plant-being. We can all picture in our minds an image of a plant. However, this image is far from perfect. It’s only through the intelligibility of the form that we know that this image is a plant, because this form is perfect and unchanging.

These forms are the essence of various objects and qualities. They’re that without which a thing wouldn’t be the kind of thing it is. For example: there are innumerable plants in the world, but the form of plant-being is the core, it’s the essence of them all. Plato claimed that the world of the forms is the essential basis of true reality and transcendent of our reality: the sensible world.

Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge and intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of the forms with one’s mind. Thus, studying reality itself is like peering through the bars of a prison.

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Plato’s Idealism

The main argument Plato offers for the existence of the forms (the unchanging foundations of knowledge) is based on the conditions he believes are necessary for any knowledge to exist at all. He argues that the sensible world can’t be known, because it’s fluctuating, changing, and subject to different individual perspectives, whereas knowledge requires stable objects.

This changing and subjective world can, therefore, only be the object of opinion, not of knowledge. Plato insists that genuine knowledge must be anchored in objects that don’t admit contradiction, since what changes can never be grasped with certainty.

It follows that if knowledge is to exist at all, it must be of a different world, separate from this one. This is the world of the perfect, eternal, and unchanging forms. Without the forms, our judgments would collapse into mere shifting impressions, leaving no foundation for science, mathematics, or ethical reasoning. In this Plato is mainly influenced by two earlier philosophers: Heraclitus (through Cratylus) and Parmenides.

Heraclitus and Cratylus

Heraclitus held that everything is in a state of becoming: that everything flows like a river, and that you, therefore, can’t step into the same river twice, as the waters are constantly changing. If all things are perpetually in motion, then the mind can never secure a fixed point from which to judge reality.

According to Aristotle, the young Plato adopted this view from a student of Heraclitus, called Cratylus, and never abandoned it. Aristotle states that Cratylus held that you couldn’t step into the same river even once, as in a constantly fluctuating world, nothing would remain stable enough for names to refer to. Such a view precludes the very possibility of knowledge. The argument that each person decides on what’s true for them would swiftly lead to solipsism, and the impossibility of any shared reality.

Parmenides

Parmenides, in contrast, held that, contrary to appearances, there’s only one thing: unchanging, eternal being. Plato’s solution was to develop a theory which contains elements of both. The world we see around us is the world of Heraclitus: a world of many different objects that are constantly changing, and which appear differently to different people at different times or from different perspectives.

However, the world we see around us isn’t all there is: to discover what’s eternal and unchanging we need to turn to the intelligible world of the forms, which individually possess the stable qualities of Parmenides. The forms thus serve as the metaphysical anchors that allow the sensible world to be understood without collapsing into chaos or illusion.

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Plato’s Timaeus

Timaeus is the book in which Plato most fully sets out his metaphysical worldview. In it, he discusses how the cosmos originated, how it’s structured, and what principles determine its order. This dialogue brings together ideas from his earlier works and presents them as a single coherent philosophy.

The Elements and the World Soul

According to Timaeus, the universe was created by a transcendent god called the demiurge (direct translation: craftsman). He gave the universe a body in the form of a sphere by fashioning it from four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. The visible and tangible body of the universe was made possible by binding these four elements together in the right proportions.

The demiurge also created the world soul to provide movement for the universe. The world soul was created from three parts: being, sameness, and difference, which were bound together in exact proportions. Two strips of the world soul’s substance were formed into rings that crossed each other in the shape of an ‘X’, representing the celestial equator and the ecliptic plane.

The Planets and the Gods

Within these rings, the demiurge created seven planetary rings (or: spheres), whose distance from the Earth depended on their apparent speed of motion. The Moon was closest, followed by the Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These planets became the heavenly gods, subordinate to the demiurge.

In creating the planets, the demiurge also created time itself, since the planets control the days, months, and seasons. The traditional gods, Plato supposed, were created by the planetary gods, whose existence is more certain since they could actually be seen.

Individual Souls

The demiurge also created individual souls from the same ingredients used for the world soul (though in a diluted form). He assigned each soul to a kindred star within the cosmos, giving it a place within the cosmic order.

These souls were then implanted into bodies according to the dictates of necessity, and if someone lives a righteous life by controlling the passions that have been imposed upon them, their soul is ultimately led back to its kindred star, rather than remaining bound to the sensible world. This provides a framework in which the soul’s fate can be understood as a return to its proper place within the cosmic order.

Since the demiurge could only create perfect, immortal things, the bodies of mortal beings had to be made by the planetary deities, who were also tasked with governing and guiding them. The mortal body is then formed by the planetary gods who borrow from the elements for this purpose. This loan must be repaid when the body dies.

Plato’s demiurge is a benevolent being who made the cosmos good by endowing it with soul and reason, thus the entire cosmos functions according to the demiurge’s foresight, called providence. The only allowance for evil is that individual souls are implanted in bodies, and that they have to overcome various earthly influences in order to live righteously.

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Plato’s Form of the Good

In the Timaeus, Plato explains how the cosmos is ordered by the demiurge, but he never regarded the demiurge as the first cause, or: the first principle. For Plato, the role of the first principle instead belongs to the form of the good, which he introduces in his Republic. In this dialogue, the good is presented as the ultimate source of all knowledge and reality.

Unlike the other forms, the good can’t be understood through a straightforward definition. Instead, the good stands above all the other forms and is presented as the source of their being. Without the good, nothing could ever truly be known, for knowledge depends on the permanence that this form provides. For this reason, the philosopher’s highest goal isn’t merely to understand the individual forms, but to contemplate the good itself, since only then can reality really be understood.

Analogy of the Sun

Trying to explain the good, Plato compares it to the Sun. The Sun doesn’t create sight or visible objects, but it makes sight possible by providing the light through which visible objects can be seen. In the same way, the good is not itself knowledge, but the source that makes knowledge possible by illuminating the intelligible world.

Just as the Sun gives visible things both light and life, the good makes the forms objects of knowledge: the forms can only be known because they are illuminated by the good. In this way, everything that can be known ultimately depends upon the good.

Analogy of the Divided Line

Plato illustrates the different worlds of reality and knowledge through his analogy of the divided line. This line is divided into four sections, grouped into the sensible world and the intelligible world.

The first section: imagination, the lowest level of cognition, which contains shadows, reflections, images, and appearances. The second section: belief, which consists of physical objects, living beings, and the sensible world. Although more reliable than mere appearances, it still concerns changing, imperfect things.

Beyond the sensible world lies the intelligible world, and it’s here that the third section lies: thought, which contains mathematical objects and abstract reasoning, whose certainty doesn’t depend on sensory experience. And lastly, the fourth section: knowledge. Here we find the forms, culminating in the form of the good. As knowledge ascends through these sections, it becomes increasingly certain, until it reaches the direct contemplation of the good, which serves as the foundation for all knowledge below it.

So, when the prisoners from Plato’s allegory of the cave escape from the cave of shadows and reflections into the sunlight, with the Sun becoming visible to them, it is the good that they are finally able to see.

Beyond Being

Plato also claims that the good is beyond being. This doesn’t mean that the good doesn’t exist, but rather, it means that the good surpasses being itself. Just as the Sun is the source of light without being identical to the things it illuminates, the good is the source of being without itself belonging to the cosmological order.

This idea became one of the defining features of later Platonism: later Platonists would interpret the good not merely as the highest form, but as the transcendent first principle from which all reality proceeds.

When Plotinus later identified Plato’s good with the one, he transformed this suggestion into a complete metaphysical system. The one became the source from which all things eternally proceed, while remaining beyond being, beyond intellect, and beyond every distinction. In this way, Plato’s first principle became the foundation of Plotinus’ metaphysics and, through him, of that of the Platonists who came after him.

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Plotinus’ Hypostases

In late antiquity, Platonism found itself at a turning point. Centuries of commentary and reinterpretation had enriched Plato’s legacy, but at the same time had splintered it into competing directions. Philosophers struggled to formulate a framework that could unify ethics, cosmology, and metaphysics.

Plotinus, a student of the mysterious Ammonius Saccas, expanded on the works of the Platonists before him and integrated it with Aristotle’s philosophy to redefine Platonism, developing a metaphysical system that influenced almost all Platonists after him.

The One

According to Plotinus, it all began with what he called the one. Totally transcendent, containing no division, multiplicity, or distinction. Beyond all categories of being and non-being. The one is the source of the universe, but not through any act of creation, but through emanation.

Imagine a ray radiating from a light source, heat spreading from fire, cold issuing from snow, or a scent wafting from an odorous substance. The one is like a spring from which water eternally gushes out. The one remains in itself, in its perfection, yet, from it, from this overflowing perfection, something else proceeds. The one overflows, and its superabundance makes something other than itself. Just like a fire, for instance, from whose inner activity (burning), the activity of warming the surrounding environment necessarily derives.

This procession finds its counterpart in a movement of return towards the source and cause. According to Plotinus, the true cause is always the final one. It’s by reuniting with its cause that that which issues from it, and which is, as it is, deficient, can truly realize its own nature. And it’s this desire to realize one’s own nature that leads to this reuniting.

Given that this movement of return springs from a desire and sense of deficiency, the thing generated must somehow be aware of its separation, and acknowledge itself as distinct from its source. And at the moment of return, the thing generated thus produces its own interpretation of the generating cause. It’s at this stage that a new order of reality is produced.

Nous

Out of the overflowing potential of the one comes something, which becomes nous (direct translation: intellect). The one doesn’t generate nous. The one gives birth to something undifferentiated, which therefore isn’t nous yet, but will become it. Not by virtue or arbitrary activity, but because it constitutes itself as nous through a movement of return to its own origin.

Nous fragments the original simplicity into the multiplicity of the forms. The multiplicity of the forms that constitute nous (and which forms the model for physical reality), isn’t something inherent in the one, but something that’s produced by the act of nous to return to its source.

Psyche

In relation to nous, the hypostasis of psyche (direct translation: soul, which includes the world soul and individual souls) marks a further descent into multiplicity and fragmentation. As something intelligible, psyche remains immaterial, unextended, and free from spatial conditioning. However, its activity unfolds in the world of matter.

Psyche therefore forms the link between nous (which contains the world of the forms) and the sensible world. It’s the expression of nous that brings the sensible world into being and holds it together in unity. Therefore, we shouldn’t think that the soul is locked up in bodies, for it’s the bodies that are locked up in the soul.

The Sensible World

After psyche comes the sensible world, the lowest point in Plotinus’ system. The physical universe, however, is still produced by psyche, and its agency makes the physical universe something harmonious and partaker of a higher beauty. However imperfect, the physical universe is still an image of the divine world. It remains a reflection of higher realities.

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Henosis

Platonists created advanced systems of metaphysics and cosmology, and these weren’t merely abstract exercises: their goal was to explore how the soul could ascend from the sensible world, to return to that from which all things proceed: the one.

One of the defining ideas of Platonism is henosis (direct translation: union, or oneness), it describes the return of the soul to (and its union with) the one.

Plotinus

According to Plotinus, all of reality proceeds from the one, the first principle beyond description and beyond being. And since the soul has its origin in the one, it naturally longs to return to its source. For Plotinus, this return can be accomplished through contemplation. As the soul withdraws from the distractions and desires of the material world, it turns inward and towards its own divinity.

Philosophy is a purification process for Plotinus. Contemplation leads the soul beyond the sensible world to the eternal intelligibility of nous, but this isn’t where its journey ends. Since the one surpasses thought itself, the soul must ultimately go beyond knowledge and even go beyond self-awareness.

Plotinus describes henosis as the soul existing in perfect unity with the one, in which every distinction between the soul and the one vanishes. This union can’t be expressed in words, but rather, it’s an experience that transcends all thinking.

Iamblichus

Iamblichus argued that contemplation alone was insufficient to achieve henosis. According to him, if henosis depended solely upon philosophical contemplation, the soul would remain confined to the sensible world. Mortal beings, he argued, are finite, and can’t bridge the immense distance between themselves and the divine.

Iamblichus therefore placed theurgy at the center of his philosophy. Theurgy consists of sacred rites that make use of ritual prayers, fumigations (the ritual burning of incense), sacred hymns, and consecrated statues. These practices weren’t intended to command or manipulate the gods, but to align the soul with the cosmic order.

The symbols used in theurgy have power because they come from the gods, and by participating in these sacred acts, the soul becomes able to receive their illumination. Henosis, therefore, isn’t achieved through mere effort alone, it’s ultimately a gift bestowed by the gods.

Proclus

Proclus inherited both traditions and united them. A central doctrine of his philosophy is the triad of remaining, procession, and return: everything remains rooted in its source, proceeds into multiplicity, and naturally strives to return to its origin. For Proclus, henosis is the consummation of this movement.

Philosophy purifies the soul and leads it to intelligible truth, while theurgy perfects the soul’s participation in the divine, and enables a unity that transcends all thinking. Contemplation alone can’t complete the ascent, but ritual without philosophical understanding is likewise incomplete, it’s together that they guide the soul to reunite with its source.

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Theurgy and the Henads

After Iamblichus had established that the soul requires assistance from the gods to achieve henosis, Platonists turned their attention to how they’d be able to receive this assistance. This practice became known as theurgy (direct translation: divine work). From Iamblichus onwards, theurgy became one of the defining features of Platonism.

Iamblichus

According to Iamblichus, the gods have left signs of themselves throughout the cosmos, and certain materials, sounds, numbers, and names possess affinities with certain gods. When these symbols are used as they were in ancient traditions, they allow the divine presence hidden within the cosmos and within the soul to manifest.

For this reason, theurgy doesn’t depend upon the knowledge or intentions of the theurgist: the power belongs to the gods themselves, who act through their own symbols. Theurgy is therefore a cooperation with the gods, rather than an attempt to command or manipulate them.

Proclus

Proclus inherited the theurgical tradition of Iamblichus and integrated it into a sophisticated metaphysical system. According to Proclus, between the one and nous are the henads: divine unities that proceed from the one, and are the source of all things that proceed from them. Every god is a henad, meaning that each god is a unique source of its own distinctive qualities throughout reality (for example, one henad is Dionysus, the source of all things Dionysian).

Through theurgy, the soul is able to ascend towards the one by participating in the cosmic order, through which the henads govern the cosmos. Proclus describes ritual prayers, fumigations (the ritual burning of incense), sacred hymns, and consecrated statues as possessing certain affinities with certain henads. Every henad manifests certain powers, and certain rites participate in those powers.

Proclus also regarded the Chaldean Oracles and the Orphic Hymns as divinely inspired revelations. These texts were therefore incorporated into the Platonic curriculum.

For Proclus, philosophy and theurgy each fulfilled a different role. Philosophy purified the soul through contemplation, however, theurgy accomplished what philosophy can’t: it unites the soul with the henads through divine participation. It enables direct communication with the reality that philosophy can only contemplate.

Course Platonism

Platonic Origins of Alchemy

Empedocles, an older contemporary of Socrates, made a fundamental contribution to the formation of the alchemical theory of matter. The philosopher is said to have been the first to explain that the natural world was composed of four primordial substances: fire, earth, water, and air, associated respectively with the properties: hot, cold, moist, and dry.

Empedocles referred to the four fundamental substances as roots (he never used the term elements, which seems to have been first used by Plato), borrowing a botanical metaphor to describe the basic constituents of matter.

Plato

It was Plato who proposed underlying structure to the elements. According to Plato’s theory of solids, the structures of the four elements must be geometric: polyhedra with well-defined shapes. Fire consists of tetrahedra, earth of hexahedra, water of icosahedra, and air of octahedra.

Plato was already considering what his student Aristotle ultimately proposed, that there was a fifth element: aether, the material from which the heavens were made (which medieval alchemists later reinterpreted as quintessence, the most refined and potent distillation of matter, a cosmic substance they believed could reveal the hidden architecture of the universe).

Plato’s theory of solids offered a mathematical model for representing the building blocks of the cosmos, and Euclid later made it possible to visually calculate and artistically represent the surfaces of the material world, hence the name of his best known work: Elements.

Aristotle

But how did the elements themselves combine to form physical matter? According to Aristotle, the elements are composed of four primary physical contraries: hot, cold, moist, and dry. The first two are active causes, and the latter two are the underlying matter. For example: fire is hot and dry, earth is cold and dry, water is cold and moist, and air is hot and moist. The elements are these contraries in the sense that it’s precisely the physical contraries themselves that we perceive in earth or water.

Here lies the core of the alchemical theory of matter. Manipulating the compositions is the key to mastering a substance and its form, and thus the transmutation of matter. However, alchemists weren’t trying to violate nature, they believed they were assisting or accelerating natural processes. They were collaborating with nature inside their laboratories: speeding its workings up, slowing them down, or guiding them along a more perfect path.

Practice Inner Peace

Stress Management

When explaining stress or hyperventilation, the well-known comparison of a lion standing in front of a caveman is often used. Once the caveman notices the lion, his body will do everything it can to make him more alert, and to give him the physical ability to do what’s necessary to survive: to either kill the lion, or to run away. His heart rate increases and his breathing quickens. In other words: he’s hyperventilating, and the stressor, the cause, is the lion.

This comparison is used to explain why the body does what it does during stress or hyperventilation. After the incident with the lion, the caveman will need to rest and de-stress. He returns home and waits until the hyperventilation process subsides.

Modern-Day Lions

But what happens to a body when the lion doesn’t go away, but continues to chase the caveman and keeps him in constant tension? Resting is no longer an option and the stress becomes constant. Although the body is built to tolerate short periods of stress between long periods of rest, it’s not built to do the opposite.

This is what contemporary life consists of. Stress in modern life rarely stems from a single dramatic event, but rather from a continuous accumulation of responsibilities and expectations. Professional demands, academic pressure, financial insecurity, and the constant need to meet the standards of others create a tension that never entirely disappears. For many people, the only meaningful break from this cycle is a short annual vacation.

The body is no longer given the chance to rest, and this accumulated strain eventually forces it to shut down, often through a hyperventilation attack or a burnout. The art of surviving contemporary life is to prevent this accumulation of stress: to find peace and to avoid (or simply remove) daily stressors. Reducing chronic stress begins with making choices that protect one’s mental and physical health.

Important is creating intentional moments of rest: time spent walking, sleeping, reading, or simply being still. These moments aren’t luxuries, but necessities, allowing the body to recover from the constant demands of modern life.

Practice Inner Peace

Deep Breathing Exercises

These exercises are personally tested and curated by me. They’re designed to help release tension from both mind and body, whether you’re looking for a daily grounding ritual, or a quick way to ease panic or stress.

One

Sit comfortably in a chair. Rest your hands on your belly, cupped together like a bowl. Inhale for five seconds, letting your belly expand and fill the bowl. Exhale for five seconds, letting your belly deflate. Repeat ten times.

Two

Sit with your hands on your knees. Inhale as you arch your back and gently lean backward. Exhale as you round your spine and lean forward. Repeat ten times.

Three

Sit with your hands on your knees. Inhale and shift your weight to your right sit bone. Exhale and shift your weight to your left sit bone. Repeat ten times.

Four

Sit on your right hand. With your left hand, gently guide your head toward your left shoulder. Hold for ten seconds. Switch sides, sit on your left hand and, with your right hand, gently guide your head toward your right shoulder. Repeat five times per side.

Five

On hands and knees, inhale as you arch your back. Exhale as you round your spine. Repeat ten times.

Six

Sit in a chair. Shift your weight fully to your right sit bone. Inhale as you move your weight to the left, making a forward semicircle with your upper body. Exhale as you return to the right, completing the circle by moving backward. Repeat ten times.

Seven

Stand with feet hip-width apart. Shift your weight to your right leg, bend the knee slightly, and exhale. Shift to your left leg, straightening the right knee, and inhale. Repeat ten times.

Eight

Stand with feet slightly apart. Exhale as you rock forward onto your toes. Inhale as you rock back onto your heels. Repeat ten times.

Nine

Imagine picking apples from a tree above you. Reach up with alternating arms. Stretch tall with each reach. Repeat ten times.

Ten

Cross your arms over your chest. Look over your left shoulder and gently twist your torso to the left. Hold for ten seconds. Repeat on the right side. Do five rounds.

Eleven

Place your hands, fingers interlaced, behind your head. Gently press your head back into your hands while resisting with your arms. Hold for ten seconds. Repeat ten times.