Platonic Concepts (pt. 5)
The First Participated Unities
Dear readers,
I sincerely hope you have been obsessively twanging your chords this entire past week.
I left this much time between these posts to allow you to twang away in peace until you come to it.
No, you nasty!
Until you come to the realization of what we are about to expand on —seriously, I can’t take you anywhere…
I have received a couple of messages asking me why I do not quote directly from the texts like most academics do.
Well…this is why:
Every deity except the one is participable.
For that the one is imparticipable is evident, since if it were participated, and on this account pertained to something else, it would no longer be similarly the cause of all things; both of such as are prior to beings, and of beings themselves. But that the other unities are participated, we shall thus demonstrate.
For if there is another imparticipable unity after the first, in what does it differ from the one? For either it subsists after the same manner as that; and how in this case is the one the second, but the other first?
Or it does not subsist after the same manner. And thus one of these will be the one itself, but the other one and not one…
—Proclus, Elements of Theology, Prop 116
And this is the translated text. You don’t want to see the Greek.
The entire point of this series is to explain all these concepts and precepts in a way that makes sense —sort of.
This isn’t exactly as easy as baking cookies. But the alternative is headache-inducing.
So while I encourage you to open some books if you’re into mental BDSM, the way we do things here is meant to take the stress and frustration out of philosophical texts.
If you’re more into aural, you may find this link more useful.
So lay back, relax, and twang away.
The Eternal Soundless Hum of The String
Imagine a string, suspended in complete darkness and empty space. There is nothing else, except the string itself —even space does not exist.
Perfect.
Undivided.
Unmarked.
Entirely still.
Whole.
Uncut.
Unbroken.
It is so perfectly taut, so perfectly tuned that by merely being there you can feel that it’s about to burst with music.
It is brimming with so much inherent resonance that it does not even need to be plucked.
So much sheer presence and potential that it’s irresistibly magnetizing, so unbearably full, it is overflowing with resonance —even though none of it can be heard yet.
This is the One.
In Greek: To Hen
Its inherent resonance, the fundamental precondition for all notes and subsequently music to arise, is Unity —Henotis.
But…how can one tune into this soundless string?
—you might ask.
That’s right, you can’t.
Its nature is such that defies all descriptions.
There are no sounds that are associated with it. Even silence fails to register it.
But without it, there can be no resonance, no vibrancy.
There can be no notes.
There can be no music.
No fiesta…
It is a strange thing to say but it does seem that we cannot participate in it at all.
Nothing can.
But here we are in this…fiesta…
Precisely.
And that is because its vibrancy is productive, it does end up producing sound.
All sound comes from that innate ability to resonate fully.
All subsequent intelligible music that our ears perceive and our bodies feel and interact with and participate in, finds its basis and its foundation in it.
So if we can’t ‘hear’ it, how do we get all this music?
Shush…
Don’t be hasty.
Twang your string some more.
While we cannot ‘hear’ the One, its resonance is productive. If it was not, as you have correctly observed, there would be no music.
Now twang your string one more time for me.
Did you hear that clear base note —your tonic?
Did it arise out of nothing, alone?
Twang it again.
Listen very carefully. What do you hear besides the clearly audible ‘note’ ?
There’s an entire, whole cluster of subtle resonances surrounding it, enriching it, propping it up, giving it body and ‘tonality’.
Are those echoes of this base note?
No…
They seem to arise with it, as if they were always latent there in the vibrancy of the string itself, not as parts or components but inherently latent with it.
They are direct, whole-string expressions of its resonance.
Are they the string itself?
No, but they are in a real way WITH the string.
This is the string’s UNITY expressed intelligibly as HARMONICS —not as byproducts or aftershocks but as the full presence of its resonance.
Each one complete.
Each one perfectly unified.
And if you listen carefully, each one totally available to participation by our ears.
PARTICIPATION
What seems to be meowing up on the roof?
—Greek Proverb for “How much clearer do you want me to make it?”
Yes, that is indeed the cat.
And by now, if you have been twanging your string carefully and intently you should have come at the same time as the rest of us…
To the inevitable conclusion:
We have thus arrived out of the ineffable, distant and transcendental One to the first participable Unities: The Gods.
Each overtone you hear, is a Henad (Greek: Henas) —a perfect unity, a participable expression of the One’s fullness and vibrancy.
When you hear the third harmonic, that is Zeus roaring his thunder.
The fourth harmonic is Athena, weaving patterns of wisdom in the air.
The fifth is Apollo, the very ‘spirit’ of melody and light.
Note: desist in interpreting ‘spirit’ as a ghostly thing. It’s just used here metaphorically.
Like the harmonics of an actual string, these divinities are with the One, not after it temporally. They co-subsist eternally IN its vibrancy —Unity—not in the One itself. They are not parts of the string. And they are not products or divisions of the string —like mini strings of their own.
Each one is a complete, intelligible sound in the cosmic chord, this DONG! that you have been hearing in the twanging of your own string.
You can attune your soul to them in the same way that you can tune in your ear to any one of the string’s harmonics and participate directly in its own unity and power.
On The Nature of The Gods
This warrants its own separate exegesis, but for now I will explain it as simply and directly as possible because I can already hear the questions brewing up:
“If the One is Beyong Being and Non Being and all that we can apprehend with our intellect, then are the Gods the First Beings? They are intelligible, distinct and participable, yes?
Although this will have many ‘pagans’ tearing out their hair: NO
The neoplatonic position is a little subtler.
The Gods are not beings. They are beyond-being —and that’s precisely why they are gods.
Let’s stay with the music…
You don’t ‘see’ the law of the octave, the ratioed relationship between your original twang and the sound that you produce when you place your finger in the middle of the string and give it another go.
But without the mathematical relationship between those two sounds no scale could form.
Likewise you don’t touch the ratio of the perfect fifth —but it structures every harmony you’ve ever loved.
The Gods are like that.
They’re not the melodies you hear. They are the reasons that melodies can exist.
They’re not physical, visible or made of parts. But every part, body and soul participates in their logic.
Let’s take any ‘being’. Let’s take the lion.
It is what it is because its nature participates in the God that orders power, ferocity and instinctual nobility. It also participates in a way to the God that orders beauty in a certain ratio. It also participates in a way to the God that orders any one of other qualities and functions that collectively culminate to various degrees each one in this creature we call the Lion.
Let’s take a shape in geometry —a triangle.
We can say that its nature participates maybe in Athena who harmonizes wisdom, measure and clarity. Maybe partially also in Hephaestus who gives things physical form. Again, this is just an example and not a direct exegetical correspondence.
When you act justly, you align with Dike —not a goddess standing in the clouds, but the very harmonic pattern of justice itself.
That’s what it is meant when in platonism we say that the gods are the principles of intelligibility. They are the pure unities that structure reality from beyond it. They do not ‘exist’ —they make existence possible.
I know, right?
“So are the Gods nothing but patterns?”
With the danger of sounding repetitive —yes, I am—there is method to my madness. The Gods are more aptly described as Unities.
They are real, eternal, intelligible presences —each one fully itself, living, divine and participable.
They do structure reality.
But they are not reducible to that structure.
They are the source of that structure.
“But you just said that they are like the principles and laws of things…”
Yes, LIKE them. But not JUST them.
A principle can be written in a textbook.
A God cannot.
A law is something that you apply.
A God is something that you attune to, honor, invite and seek to become ‘like’.
They are not dry formulas per se.
They are living divine realities that shine through the structure that they give rise to, the way that beauty shines through a perfect chord.
You don’t worship the ratio of that chord.
You do not write a poem to the 2:1 ratio of the octave.
You worship the god whose resonance gives that ratio life.
In other words, the gods aren’t blueprints but the immortal architects of those.
“This makes zero sense. If they are not beings how are they the architects of anything?”
I know, petal…
It hurteth thy brain.
But you’re thinking of ‘being’ like most people do —as ‘existing stuff.’
But in this tradition, ‘being’ isn’t the top of the ladder. It’s one of the effects.
The Gods don’t exist in the way rocks, chairs or ideas do. As composite, conditioned things that have parts. Remember what ‘Unity’ is, again?
They don’t exist like souls even or angels, or any of the monotheistic fairytale beings that you are accustomed to.
They are PRIOR to all that.
They make all that be what it is.
Let me guide you through another exercise that probably won’t leave you any less confused.
You walk into a room and hear a melody.
“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
You wonder where that is coming from so you follow the sound. You see a guitar on a chair but it’s not being played. Still, the air is full of music and that melody. Everywhere you look, the décor, the furniture, the color palette of the room, everything sings ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.
And then you realize that it’s not a sound in space but a ‘resonance’ woven into the very condition of the room. Every object in the room is vibrating in tune with something…deeper.
That ‘deeper’ manifests in your mind as ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ It manifests in the room and its ambience as such. It is pure PRESENCE that doesn’t stand WITHIN being but radiates THROUGH IT.
Tis time to leave you here again. Alone and frustrated just like your ex did.
Until next time…
