What was it that made the radically top-down idealism of the Neoplatonists so appealing? Disregarding in this context the religious-sentimental appeal Neoplatonism undoubtedly must have had and perhaps still has, its philosophical attractiveness and significance lies in the fact that it offered a maximum of explanatory power on the basis of just one metaphysical principle. Even though the system coheres in such a way that it is possible to approach it from many angles, it is perhaps best to begin at the top of the ontological pyramid and to return to the question posed earlier: How is it possible to explain the world’s emergence from a single divine principle of consciousness?