Skip to content
Unitive Knowledge Society
Search

Accents are optional; quotes find an exact phrase.

Sympatheia

The mutual connection of all things in the cosmos, as parts of one living whole.

Greek philosophy and Neoplatonism

Sympatheia, affinity or fellow-feeling, is the Stoic doctrine that all parts of the universe are bound together by the pneuma, so that what affects one affects all. Marcus Aurelius meditates on the interconnection of all things. Neoplatonists used the idea to explain magic and providence.