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Select Works of Plotinus · 339 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 324

Section 4 4. In that realm it has also vision, through the Intellectual-Principle, of The Good which does not so hold to itself as not to reach the soul; what intervenes between them is not body and therefore is no hindrance- and, indeed, where bodily forms do intervene there is still access in many ways from the primal to the tertiaries. If, on the contrary, the soul gives itself to the inferior, the same principle of penetration comes into play, and it possesses itself, by memory and imagination, of the thing it desired: and hence the memory, even dealing with the highest, is not the highest. Memory, of course, must be understood not merely of what might be called the sense of remembrance, but so as to include a condition induced by the past experience or vision. There is such a thing as possessing more powerfully without consciousness than in full knowledge; with full awareness the possession is of something quite distinct from the self; unconscious possession runs very close to identity, and any such approach to identification with the lower means the deeper fall of the soul. If the soul, on abandoning its place in the Supreme, revives its memories of the lower, it must have in some form possessed them even there though the activity of the beings in that realm kept them in abeyance: they could not be in the nature of impressions permanently adopted- a notion which would entail absurdities- but were no more than a potentiality realized after return. When that energy of the Intellectual world ceases to tell upon the soul, it sees what it saw in the earlier state before it revisited the Supreme.
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Themes
Body As Obstacleanthropology

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

The claim that the soul will know nothing of 'things of earth' implies the material realm is an obstacle to be left behind.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

The distinction between 'things of earth' and the 'Intellectual Realm' peripherally suggests a hierarchical structure of being.

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Gnosis Direct Knowledgesoteriology

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

[auto] The passage centrally describes the 'direct intellectual act' and knowing the object without previous knowledge as the defining state of the soul in the Intellectual Realm.

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Inner Silencepraxis

The practice of stilling the mind and speech to open receptivity to divine knowledge or presence.

The description that there is 'room for nothing else than to know' implies a stilling of discursive thought and memory.

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Monadcosmology

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

References to 'that Essence' and the 'Supreme' point peripherally to the undivided first principle.

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Mystical Unionsoteriology

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

[auto] The text states that without Contemplation of the Essence, the soul's being is not there, suggesting a merging of identity with the divine object.

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Opposites Transcendedanthropology

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

[auto] The passage dissolves the opposition between time and eternity, stating that intellection is timeless and memory belongs to the lower realm.

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Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

[auto] The text explicitly mentions the soul having 'won its way to that Essence' after an 'earthly career', indicating a journey back to the divine origin.

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Spiritual Ascentpraxis

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

[auto] The passage contrasts the 'earthly career' with the 'Intellectual Realm', implying a staged journey upward toward the divine source.

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Related passages · 10 parallels
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