Travels with Plotinus: A Journey in Search of Unity

by Moin Mir

In Travels with Plotinus, Moin Mir follows Plotinus's 1,780-year-old journey of personal discovery across India, Egypt, Italy, Greece and Turkey as he tries to understand the core concept of Plotinian thought, derived from studying the Upanishads – 'Unity and Oneness'.

He uses Plotinus's philosophy to observe how the free will of intellect uses 'Unity' for good and evil. Intimate conversations with refugees escaping war, innocent boatmen drifting down the Nile, simple farmers and monks in Greece along with observations of ancient art and modern technological accomplishments inform his thoughts and writing on the concept of the oneness of humankind – its immense power to bring good and yet its vulnerability to the stealth of intellect to destroy and self-destruct.

288 pages, Hardcover

Published April 25, 2025

Reviews

[Charlie Huenemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plotinus was an ancient philosopher who thought reality is One and all signs of division emerge from that primal unity. Moin Mir takes that idea with him as he retraces some of Plotinus's travels in his own search for unity in our world, riven as it is with inequity and division (and so too with Plotinus's own world). Mir is off and on in his own writing, and in his exploration of Plotinus's ideas, but he has a good idea and on the whole it is successfully carried out.

[Anica Xie · Rating 3 out of 5]

disliked this book heavily for the majority of it, but i’m very glad i didn’t give up on it. there’s a lot of fluffy imagery and repetition of following in plotinus’ footsteps with scant context. a lot of the theory included is also word dumped in large chunks of paragraphs, disjointing the narrative voice in major components of the written word. this inhibited the journey from being fully immersive, and a lot of dialogue describing encounters with people felt trivial. however, the pace picked up in the last 3 chapters and the concepts of unity, intellect, and how they are ingrained in modern lives and ai made a compelling ending. what started off as a generalizing, sappy book turned out to challenge my thinking in the final pages.