The emperor had even given his consent for the building of the city, but for reasons unknown, it was later withdrawn. At the age of 60, Plotinus acquired a bright pupil named Porphyry. It is only possible to make things by thinking them, and to think things as a maker, by being them. Bodies are phantoms, present in matter only as an image, like a mirror, and the realities behind them are Forms. But even a thinker will produce only an idol unless the Forms he thinks are in him, thus collectively are him.
Intellect is a maker.
But there is no process in its making, only the timeless activity of thinking the intelligible Forms that it is. The One cannot be any existing thing, but is prior to all existents. His theory is not monistic like Parmenides, but rather resembles an amalgam of principles evident in Neo-Pathagoreanism and Middle Platonism. Matter is the farthest away, so it becomes the source of evil, but not wholly evil since it derived from God. Even elements of Mysticism are evident in the final stages of the soul's ascent.