human
Mysticism in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ has the following on the teaching of Plotinus (204-206 A.D.):
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The One [the Supreme God spoken of above] is exalted above the _nous_ and the 'ideas'; it transcends existence altogether and is not cognisable by reason. Remaining itself in repose, it rays out, as it were, from its own fulness, an image of itself, which is called _nous_, and which constitutes the system of ideas of the intelligible world. The soul is in turn the image or product of the _nous_, and the soul by its motion begets corporeal matter. The soul thus faces two ways--towards the _nous_, from which it springs, and towards the material life, which is its own product. Ethical endeavour consists in the repudiation of the sensible; material existence is itself estrangement from God.... To reach the ultimate goal, thought itself must be left behind; for thought is a form of motion, and the desire of the soul is for the motionless rest which belongs to the One. The union with transcendent deity is not so much knowledge or vision as ecstasy, coalescence, _contact_. Neo-Platonism is thus