The Undescended Soul

A part that never falls

Plotinus taught, against most who came after him, that the soul does not wholly descend: its summit remains always above, contemplating in Intellect, even while its lower powers animate a body. We are mostly unaware of this higher life, absorbed in the world of sense — yet it means the way up is always open, for part of us is already there. Later Platonists like Iamblichus rejected the doctrine, holding that the soul descends entire.