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Psychozoia: The Journey of the Soul

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Henry More, 1614–1687

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Abstract

More’s Psychodia Platonica (1642) is in many respects a profoundly religious document, a ‘confession’ in verse, describing in sometimes obscure allegorical detail a quite unique illuminist revelation. More’s interest in philosophy was framed and inspired by specific spiritual and apologetic concerns, as both Ward’s biography, and the little autobiography included in the General Preface to More’s Opera Omnia (1679), make clear.1 For More the end of all ‘true’ philosophy was the defence and explication of Christian religion, and the end of all religion was the believer’s ‘Second Birth’, and his or her illumination or ‘deification’:2

our endeavour must be not onely to be without sin, but to become God, that is, impassible, immaterial, quit of all sympathy with the body, drawn up wholly into the intellect, and plainly devoid of all perturbation.

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Notes

  1. See my article, “Illuminism”, in Rogers (1997): 129–144.

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  2. PP: 371. See also Discourses: 19.

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  3. See Cudworth, TIS: 584–87; More, IS: I, iv. See also Dockrill, “The Heritage of Patristic Platonism ” in Rogers et al, Cambridge Platonists (1997): 57–59.

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  4. See Ward: 31 ff.

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  5. See IS, III,xv,7 ff.; and Walker, “Medical Spirits, God and the Soul”, in M. Fattori and M. Bianchi (eds.), Spiritus (1984):225 and 237–9.

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  6. Ward: 33. See also DD: 293-5; and EE: III,v,10.

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  7. Ward: 33.

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  8. More was careful in the CC (1653) to emphasise that this `separation’ of the body from the soul was not a denial of the `natural pleasures’ of physical life, but only of the `inordinate desire for pleasure’ and the consequent dominance of the intellect by sense-impressions and the humours of the constitution. See The Moral Cabbala, iii,4.

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  9. “Psychathanasia”, I,ii,47.

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  10. Compare Smith (1660): 100 ff.

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  11. Discourses (1692): 188. Compare Smith (1660): 75–6.

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  12. See “Psychathanasia”, I,ii,27–31, and IS, II,xiv,10. But see below, Chapter 5 on the later development of More’s ideas about Matter under the influence of Cartesianism.

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  13. Discourses: 188. See also GMG: II,xi,1–3; IS: II,xiv,5–6.

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  14. See D.P. Walker, “Medical Spirits”, in M. Fattori, Spiritus (1984): 225 and 237–9.

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  15. See IS: Il,xiv,5–6; Discourses: 188; and GMG: II,xi,1–4.

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  16. ’Eve’ was the ‘innocent pleasure of the body’, especially the delight of the soul in the aetherial realm. See The Defence of the Moral Cabbala (1712): 223–4.

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  17. It was ‘the inordinate desire for pleasure’ which had first attached the soul to the body. See IS: II,xiv,10.

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  18. Discourses: 187. Compare Smith: 16.

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  19. Discourses: 66. This image of the two `eyes’ of the soul here is traditional, and derives from Matthew, vi, 22–3: “The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness…”. The Christian Platonists interpreted it via Plato, Republic: 508c ff. and Plotinus, Enneads: I,vi,8. More’s immediate source here is probably the Theologia Germanica (1854): vii. Compare also Smith (1660): 16.

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  20. See More, PP: Preface, and EE: I,iii,4.

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  21. IS: III,xviii,5 ff.

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  22. See Theologia Germanica (1854): vii.

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  23. EE: I,iii,4. See also DD: 303–9.

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  24. Discourses: 39; EE: III,v,10–13. Compare Smith (1660): 17; and see below.

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  25. Discourses: 39; and see Smith, Ibid: 9.

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  26. More, DD: 304–7.

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  27. PP: 363. See DD: 305–9.

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  28. “Psychozoia” in PP (1647): ii,147. More is referring to the final interiorization of self-denial, humility (Simon’s parents) and the spirit, or `eye’ of inner obedience (Simon). This is the union of the two `eyes’ of the soul. See below.

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  29. Discussed in detail, below, next chapter.

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  30. See Bullough (1931): li and lvi.

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  31. See for example Discourses: 10 ff. The main biblical reference is I Peter: 2,11: “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” See Clement on this, in Tollinton, Clement of Alexandria (1914): II, 312. For the Puritan background, see Kaufmann, Pilgrim’s Progress and Traditions of Puritan Meditation (1966): 136 ff.

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  32. Discourses: 123. See also Kaufmann (1966): 139–40.

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  33. Discourses: 129–30.

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  34. Compare Smith (1660): 17–8.

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  35. Op.cit, The Moral Cabbala: i,2.

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  36. “Psychozoia”: ii,42.

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  37. Ibid: ii,45–50.

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  38. This is a common theme in Puritan literature - the unregenerate, because ignorant of the truth, are inevitably hypocritical. See Alpaugh, “Emblem Interpretation”: 305, who points out that Bunyan’s Atheist, for instance, reads the world as reality rather than emblem. Bunyan, (ed Sharrock), Pilgrim’s Progress (1965): 174.

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  39. Smith (1660): 466–7. See also Cudworth, Sermon (1647), in Patrides (1969): 100; and B. Whichcote, Aphorisms (1753): # 388.

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  40. “Psychozoia” in PP (1647 only): ii,57–125.

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  41. “Psychozoia” (1647): ii,58. See also Bullough: liv-lv; and Nicolson, “More’s Psychozoia”, Modern Language Notes 37 (1922): 141–8.

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  42. “Psychozoia” in PP (1647): ii, 77–80. See also Bullough: lvüi.

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  43. “Psychozoia” in PP (1647): ü,87–8.

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  44. “Psychozoia” in PP (1647): ii,89–92 and 99. See also Smith (1660): 426–7.

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  45. See below, and also “Psychozoia” in PP (1647): 0,90, where Corvino makes this accusation specific.

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  46. Compare Discourses: 75.

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  47. “Psychozoia”: ii,72, and in PP (1647), 0,141. See Smith (1660): 15–6, and 469–74; and B. Whichcote, in Patrides (1969): 77 ff.

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  48. See “Psychozoia” in PP (1647), ü,146–7, and the discussion, below, next chapter.

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  49. See for instance “Psychozoia”: 0,136–7; and also CC, The Moral Cabbala: i,1 and i,2.

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  50. See Discourses: 79.

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  51. PP: 359–60. See also CC, The Philosophical Cabbala: iii,3; and Cudworth on the “Magick of Nature”, Sermon (1647), in Patrides (1969): 112.

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  52. “Psychozoia”: iii,10–22; and compare Spenser, Fairie Queene: VI,i,9–22. See also PP: 364–6; and Smith (1660): 353–9, and 472–4.

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  53. “Psychozoia”: iii,22, and Discourses: 164 and 171 ff.

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  54. “Psychozoia”: iii,55–62. Compare Spenser, Fairie Queene: VI,viii.

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  55. “Psychozoia”: iii,58–9. See also Theologia Germanica (1854): xix, and S. Castellio, Conference (1679): 54.

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  56. “Psychozoia”: iii,61.

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  57. Discourses: 52–3 and p.101–3. See Cudworth, Sermon, in Patrides (1969): 102, and Smith (1660): 3. See also Clement on the `preparatory role of philosophy’ in Tollinton (1914): II, 295.

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  58. See above and also Theologia Germanica (1854): xiv; and compare the four types of men in Smith (1660): 17–21, and his similar rejection of `assurance’ as the goal of devotional life, in Ibid: 426–7.

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  59. On Hallywell, see Peile: I, 577–8. Hallywell was the pupil of George Rust, perhaps More’s most intellectually gifted pupil. All of Hallywell’s published works show a close dependence on More’s ideas. See below, Appendix, for their correspondence.

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  60. See particularly Discourses: 46 ff.

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  61. [Hallywell], Deus Justificatus (1668): 177. This work was thought by some contemporaries to be by Cudworth. See More to Anne Conway, Nicolson: 293, note.

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  62. [Hallywell], Deus Justificatus (1668): 180.

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  63. Ibid: 182.

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  64. Ibid: 180. Compare Smith (1660): 476.

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  65. Malachi: iv,2:“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing wings: and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” The image is also Platonic. See Plato, Republic, 508d ff.; and Plotinus: VI,vii,22; and the discussion in V. Lossky, Image and Likeness of God (1967): 45–69. See also Cudworth, Sermon, in Patrides (1969): 111; Smith (1660), The Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion, which forms an extended commentary on this kind of `light’ imagery. On the `scarcity’ of More’s poems, see Rust’s reported request from Ireland that More reissue them in folio, Ward: 232.

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  66. “Psychozoia”: iii,27. The two wings of the soul were faith in God’s power to destroy sin, and the soul’s love of God. See PP: 368.

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  67. See below.

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  68. [Hallywell], Deus Justificatus (1668): 183.

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  69. “Psychozoia”: iii,67 ff. Compare Discourses: 54; and DD: 303–6. See also Tollinton, Clement: II, 86 ff.

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  70. This controversial rejection of a purely physical resurrection was one of the main reasons More was later accused of heresy. See below, Chapter 7.

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  71. CC., Defence of the Moral Cabbala (1712): 222. See also GMG: VI,v,4–6.

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  72. GMG: VI,v,4.

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  1. University of Australia, Australia

    Robert Crocker

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Crocker, R. (2003). Psychozoia: The Journey of the Soul. In: Henry More, 1614–1687. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 185. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_2

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