What follow are our meeting notes for 28 September 2020, including the Euro and Western Hemisphere online Zoom meetings.

After an extended meditation, we continued our preparation for the study of Ur-Platonism.

We began with a discussion of our experiences with the task to discover one’s true self. It was demonstrated that knowing is a form of remembering. What we know about higher ideas in the vertical direction are often forgotten when we try to express them in words.

We then discussed the state of being in The Edenic State, using insights from St Basil the Great and St Symeon the New Theologian as our guides. The Primordial State is the original state of the human race. The first stage of the Hermetic path is the recovery of that state. We also discussed the notions of the Image and Likeness of God.

The Image of God is our Essence, given by God, so it is not man’s glory but a sign of God’s glory. As such, man is the rational or intellectual soul. A life of passion and desire is not a fully human life.

The likeness of God is what we achieve on our own in the course of life; this was greatly distorted after the Fall. Only moral purification will restore the likeness. In particular, our soul lives need to be stabilized so that they are no longer bothered with perturbations arising from excessive desires and negative emotions.

Our task for this week is to set aside some time each day and do a meditation on the Adamic state. Specifically, when Adam first became aware after having been formed, what was his consciousness like?

Next week, we will start the text on Ur-Plaonism.