In the end, Plotinus’s system is less of a philosophy than a religion.30 At its core is a mystical, even ecstatic, union with God, the final leap in which we transcend all the limitations of matter, time, and space and become one with the One. The closest metaphor Plotinus could find to capture its delight was of a dance with eternity: On looking on [the One] we find our goal and our resting-place, and around Him we dance the true dance, God-inspired, no longer discordant.… In this dance, the soul beholds the wellspring of Life, and wellspring of Intellect, the source of Being, [the] cause of
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