id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
en-wikipedia-org-6670		Apophatic theology - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	11576	1599	65	Our thought cannot grasp the One as long as any other image remains active in the soul [...] To this end, you must set free your soul from all outward things and turn wholly within yourself, with no more leaning to what lies outside, and lay your mind bare of ideal forms, as before of the objects of sense, and forget even yourself, and so come within sight of that One. Carabine notes that Plotinus' apophasis is not just a mental exercise, an acknowledgement of the unknowability of the One, but a means to ecstasis and an ascent to "the unapproachable light that is God."[web 10] Pao-Shen Ho, investigating what are Plotinus' methods for reaching henosis,[note 7] concludes that "Plotinus' mystical teaching is made up of two practices only, namely philosophy and negative theology."[27] According to Moore, Plotinus appeals to the "non-discursive, intuitive faculty of the soul," by "calling for a sort of prayer, an invocation of the deity, that will permit the soul to lift itself up to the unmediated, direct, and intimate contemplation of that which exceeds it (V.1.6)."[web 8] Pao-Shen Ho further notes that "for Plotinus, mystical experience is irreducible to philosophical arguments."[27] The argumentation about henosis is preceded by the actual experience of it, and can only be understood when henosis has been attained.[27] Ho further notes that Plotinus's writings have a didactic flavour, aiming to "bring his own soul and the souls of others by way of Intellect to union with the One."[27] As such, the Enneads as a spiritual or ascetic teaching device, akin to The Cloud of Unknowing,[28] demonstrating the methods of philosophical and apophatic inquiry.[29] Ultimately, this leads to silence and the abandonment of all intellectual inquiry, leaving contemplation and unity.[30]	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-6670.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-6670.txt