" To lead the soul through ascetic praxis to erotic ecstasy was the aim of Platonic spirituality, described immortally by Plotinus:
'Exulting like Bacchus ... straining upwards, ... and longing to break away from the body ... are emotions of souls under the spel of love .... The ancients teach that ... every virtue ... is purification .... In the soul's becoming a good and beautiful thing is its becoming like God.... Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every soul ... until, passing on the upward way all that is other than God, each in the solitude of himself shall behold that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure .... And one that shall know this vision - with what passion of love shall he not be seized, with what pang of desire, what longing to be molten into one with This, what wondering delight?'
Despite the sensual language, love's proper object is immaterial, and eros must escape the world in order to meld with the One. "

― , Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico Della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory