Synthesis:Neoplatonism

As its name suggests, neoplatonism is connected with the philosopher Plato. Key figures include Plotinus, whose major work is called the Enneads, Proclus. Neoplatonist ideas and practices run through the whole history of european civilization, having influenced early christian writers like Saint Augustine and ascetics like pseudo-Dionysius the Aeropagite and Evagrius Ponticus, who in turn had a profound on western and eastern medieval christian mystics, such as John Climacus, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas, Saint Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, and then on Renaissance intellectuals like Marsilio Ficino whose magnus opus Theologica Platonica attempted a formal synthesis of neoplatonism and christianity, as well as later mystics like John of the Cross or Terésa of Ávila. As such they are of enormous cultural import.

Henosis and the three-stage model

In the Enneads, Plotinus proposes a model describing the different phases of "mystical ascent", an itinerary culminating in what he calls union with god. It is called Henosis, which is the Greek word for "union" — literally becoming (-osis) one (hen). Mazur (2021), as quoted in the Wikipedia article on the topic, delineates the following stages:

• Phase 1, Catharsis: self-purification (aphairesis) from any contamination with multiplicity (of any thought, knowledge, or mental activity); "removing" Being itself (Enneads III.8.10)
• Phase 2, Mystical self-reversion: "The intellect ... must ‘withdraw backwards’ and surrender itself to what lies behind it" (Enneads III.8.9)
• Phase 3, Autophany: luminous vision of one's own self
• Phase 3.2, Self-unification: to "become one from many" (Enneads VI.9.3)
• Phase 4, Annihilation: discussed in the Enneads VI.9
• Phase 5, Union with the One
• Phase 5.2, Desubjectification
• Passages in the Enneads describing the different stages of mystical union with the One can be found in I.6, IV.8, VI.9, III.8, V.3, V.5, V.8, and VI.7-8.

Overall, this itinerary follows a three-phase structure which may originate in Plato's Allegory of the cave, and which can found in the mystical writings of a striking number of christian mystics. These three phases are:

• Purification
• Illumination
• Union

Practitioners of Hesychasm (which comes from the greek word meaning "silence"), the core practice of Orthodox contemplatives, use this specific model to describe the stages of practice. The Greek names for these stages are

• Katharsis (κάθαρσις) or purification,
• Theoria (θεωρία) or illumination, and
• Theosis (θέωσις) or deification (or union with God).

The experiences of hesychasts are preserved in a collection of texts called Philokalia, which translates to "love" (philo-) "of beauty" (kalia), just like philosophy means love of wisdom.

Similarly, Saint John of the Cross, arguably one of the most well-know Catholic mystics, also fits his own conception of the path within this structure.

Resources

• Ficino, M. (2001). Platonic theology. Harvard University Press.
• Mazur, A. J. (2021). The Platonizing Sethian background of Plotinus’s mysticism (D. M. Burns, K. Corrigan, I. Miroshnikov, T. Rasimus, & J. D. Turner, Eds.; Rev. ed). Brill.
• Plato. (1997). Complete works. Hackett Pub.