Ideal World
"If you want me to show you the vicinity, you must first climb to the roof." Goethe, "The West-East Divan"
"The realm of Pure Forms will be the original, the visible world the reflection, and the medium will be that Receptacle of becoming which is later provided." Plato, "The Timaeus of Plato"
"...Plotinus, the great neoplatonic philosopher, who in a very interesting and profoundly significant passage says, "In the intelligible world, which is the world of platonic ideas, everything shines; consequently, the most beautiful thing in our world is fire."
This remark is significant in several ways. First of all, it interests me profoundly as showing that a great metaphysical structure, the platonic and neoplatonic structure, was essentially built up on a quasi-sensory experience. The world of Ideas shines, it is a world which can be seen; and this curious fact that the ideal world can actually be seen, can be discovered in Plato himself. In the Phaedo, Socrates speaks about the posthumous world to which good men go after they are dead, ...that Socrates says about this world-which he calls the other earth- is that in this other earth everything shines, that the very stones of the road and on the mountains have the quality of precious stones; and he ends up by saying that the precious stones of our earth, our highly valued emeralds, rubies, and so on, are but infinitesimal fragments of the gems which are to be seen in this other earth...Well, here again is another indication that a great metaphysical idea the platonic Idea, the platonic system of an ideal world, is also based upon a world of vision."
From:"Visionary Experience"
a lecture given in Copenhagen by Aldous Huxley in 1961