[1007] The details of the life of Plotinus are due to Porphyry, who gives the most succinct account of his doctrine, and describes his excursions into the higher sphere by means of self-hypnosis. The whole field of modern spiritualism seems to have been cultivated by the Neoplatonists, and, indeed, by other mystics long before; allusions by Plotinus himself will be found in Enneads, v, 9; vi, 7; iii, 8, etc. Porphyry relates that during the six years of his intimacy with him, his master attained to ecstatic union on four occasions. It will be seen, therefore, that Plotinus was very abstemious in indulging in such a luxury; he would have much to learn from modern improvements under which Mrs. Piper and other trance-mediums enter the vacuous realm regularly day by day; see the Psychical Society’s Reports; cf. Bigg, Christian Platonists, etc., p. 248; also Myers’ Classical Essays, 1883, p. 83, _et seq._
[1008] “Only the cultured,” he remarks, “can aspire to the summit and upwards; as for the vulgar crowd, they are bound down to common necessaries”; Enneads, II, ix, 9.
[1009] The Stoics began this allegorizing of the ancient books; see Zeller (Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, Lond., 1892) for an account of their conceits. Philo Judaeus performed a similar service for the Pentateuch, of which the Jews do not seem to have believed much literally in his day; nor, in fact, did the early Christian Fathers; see Origen, Comment. in Genesim, etc. He notices, amongst other things, the difficulty which arises from the production of light before the sun was created; Gen., i, 3, 16. Porphyry’s treatise on the Cave of the Nymphs (Odyssey, xiii, 102) remains to show the method of exegesis adopted by the Neoplatonists in order to demonstrate the divine inspiration of the old Greek poets. Kingsley’s novel, “Hypatia,” gives a good picture of Neoplatonism in some of its popular aspects.
[1010] A treatise emanating from the school of Iamblichus is extant, viz., The Mysteries of the Egyptians, an exposition supposed to be written by Abamon in answer to a sceptical letter from Porphyry to Anebo, assumed characters apparently. It includes a whole system of Neoplatonic magic and theurgy, and describes the various appearances of daemonic phantasms with the accuracy of one accustomed to be familiarly associated with them. Objectively the series descends from the celestial light which defines the personality of a god to a turbid fire indicative of the form of a lower daemon, perhaps of malignant propensities. There is a recent edition of this work in English, probably a venture addressed to spiritualistic circles.