The Higher Self is a concept introduced by Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis, into transpersonal psychology. This notion is explained and linked up with the Western mystical tradition. Here, coming from antiquity and specifically from the neo-Platonic tradition, a similiar concept has been developed which became known as the spark of the soul, or summit of the mind. This history is sketched and the meaning of the term illustrated. During the middle ages it was developed into a psychology of (...) mysticism by Thomas Gallus, popularized by Bonaventure, and radicalized by the Carthusian writer Hugh of Balma. Spark of the soul signifies an "organ of the mystical experience." It is argued that the split introduced into history between outer and inner experience has lain dormant ever since the 13th century, with inner experience relegated to the private and mystical realm. By introducing this concept, transpersonal psychology reconnects with this tradition and has to be aware of the legacy: to achieve the theoretical, and if possible scientific, integration of both types of experience by drawing on the experiential nature of this concept and fostering good research. (shrink)

Plotinus treats certain pre‑philosophical concepts as reliable or promising starting‑points for philosophical study. This article studies the way in which he, in the act of philosophizing, conceives of the passage from an unclear understanding, a kind of pre‑concept, to a better, philosophical conception. What are the sources of this passage? What is the role of data given by sense‑perception? In what way are innate conceptual and cognitive capacities involved? It will be argued that the methodology suggested is a Platonic version (...) of the Stoic appeal to common notions (koinai ennoia). Moreover, Plotinus seems to maintain several features of the empirical original. The concepts discussed are not primarily introspected or intuited, but seem to result from both experience and from innate tendencies. The bottom‑up approach of scrutinizing the combination of inquiries in the Enneads (and in a commentary of Proclus) and the methodological remarks made within these same inquiries, exposes, further, an interesting list of concepts significant for the Neoplatonic theory‑building : freedom, oneness, time and eternity, as well as good and evil. (shrink)

Though “mysticism” in not a Plotinian idiom, it has been frequently used by scholars to identify an aspect of his philosophy. Thus, Plotinus’ mysticism comprises those passages of the Enneads in which he describes different transcendent experiences or presents his interpretation of these. Upon these two elements, we believe, Plotinus structures a coherent doctrine about the relation between man and the higher degrees of reality closely dependant, as well, on his metaphysical theory. In the present work we intend to provide (...) an accurate account of Plotinus’ mystical doctrine for which we will also need to analyse the singularities of the different mystical discourses present in the Enneads and outline and discuss the main streams of interpretation that scholars have suggested for this subject. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone rastrear la influencia de la tradición platónica Acerca de los primeros principios, en sus diversas formulaciones, sobre la filosofía de Orígenes de Alejandría. La lectura origeniana de los autores platónicos y su afinidad con ellos se confirman en las fuentes históricas. El alejandrino adopta y asimila numerosos aspectos de la doctrina y la terminología de los seguidores de Platón. Sin embargo, también toma distancia de ellos en algunos puntos neurálgicos de su concepción de lo divino (...) y de la creación del mundo. Se analizan especialmente los papeles que cumplen en la teoría origeniana las categorías académicas de lo absoluto y lo relativo, la noción mesoplatónica y filoniana del agente demiúrgico y una original adaptación del esquema causal derivativo neopitagórico. -/- The present paper intends to trace the influence of the Platonic tradition On first principles;, considering its different versions, on the philosophy of Origen of Alexandria. Origen's knowledge of the Platonists and his affinity with them are confirmed by the historical sources. The Alexandrian adopts and assimilates many aspects of the doctrine and terminology of Plato's followers. However, he also departs from them regarding some of the essential elements in his conception of the divine and of the world's creation. Particularly, the paper focuses on the roles played in Origen's theory by the Academic categories of absolute and relative, the Middle-platonic and Philonian notion of the demiurgic agent and an original reframing of the Neopythagorean derivative system of causes. (shrink)