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context, the soul uses its powers merely to understand objects of perception or
sense. At the intellectual level, the soul contemplates abstract ideas and is con-
scious of itself as a soul or self fundamentally distinct from the body. This self-
consciousness of the soul is its so-called essential level, at which it can move from
earthly to celestial existence and, through reincarnation, from one body to
another. The third level of the soul is that at which, through mystical contempla-
tion, it fuses with God, in the process losing its individuality. In Plotinus’s view,
this third level is always present—that is, the human soul is always fused with
God, although humans are not always aware of it. In our earthly existence our
intellects distract us from this awareness, and rather than being fixed on the eter-
nal, we are bound to sense perception and concrete imagination in time.
As Plotinus describes the human soul,
although “our reasoning is our own”
and “we ourselves think the thoughts that occupy the understanding,” our intel-
lectual capacity is nourished from above and our sensitive capacity from below.
Humans, thus, are not only midway between God and the beasts but are partly
both. In this view, the sensitive principle is “our scout,” the intellectual “our
King.” We become more kingly by molding ourselves to the intellectual princi-
ple, more beastly by becoming preoccupied with the senses. In our earthly exis-
tence, it is the intellectual level of the soul that self-remembers. Sense and
perception are at an animal level and lack the abstractive powers necessary for
self-consciousness and recollection.
10
At death, intellect-based memories are
retained for awhile but gradually are forgotten as the soul focuses on higher
activities. This is a time when the soul may begin to remember previous lives
that were forgotten during its most recent life: “The soul, still a dragged captive,
will tell of all the man did and felt; but upon death there will appear, as time
passes, memories of the lives lived before, some of the events of the most recent
life being dismissed as trivial.”
11
However, as the soul turns its attention toward
God, even these memories of prior lives are forgotten.
How quickly the soul makes these transitions depends on how it has lived in
this life. If in this life an individual has focused on the contemplation of God and
led a good life, then in the next life he or she will quickly make the transition to
focusing exclusively on God. However, souls bound in this life to a brute exis-
tence will not in the next be able to let go of human experiences and, as a conse-
quence, will suffer. “The loftier” part of the soul “must desire to come to a happy
forgetfulness of all that has reached it through the lower.” Thus “the more
urgent the intention towards the Supreme, the more extensive will be the soul’s
forgetfulness, unless indeed, when the entire living has, even here, been such
that
memory has nothing but the noblest to deal with.”
12
When human contem-
plation reaches its highest point, one forgets one’s self entirely, merging with