The Misticism of the Self in the Philosophy of Plotinus

Abstract

The subject of the article is analysis of mystical experience in Plotinus’ philosophy from the perspective of the experience of the self. The author point to two distinct levels of contemplation present in Plotinu: the noetic and the hypernoetic one. The first is an intellectual intuition of the true being, while the latter is a union with the One above being through unknowing. Hypernoetic experience is discusses in terms of an experience of the core of the human self, which is inseparably united to the One in such a way that the ultimate experience of the self is, at the same time, the experience of the One as indistinct from the self. Plotinus, however, does not interpret this experience as a testimony to the objective identity of the One and the soul, but in terms of a subjective state which is, in a way, contradictory to the metaphysical state of affairs. The One is distinct from the soul, but in the ultimate experience become indistinguishable from it. The mysticism of the self within philosophy brings about an inevitable tension which is overcome by Plotinus through the use of distinction between the experience of reality and reality in itself.