Conversely, everything that descends toward the Depths must be heavy and turbid; and according to its turbidity and weight shall be the speed of its passage to its [downward] goal.

O soul: Indeed, the noble species descend from their [original] realm into the realm of nature as visitors who examine it. But once they employ the instruments (the senses) through which tastes, smells, visual objects, and all the incidental faculties of sensation are encountered, they forget their own realm and all that is within it. They begin to think there is nothing other than what they witness through the senses; at that point, they forget the realm of the Intellect and lose all memory of it. When these [faculties] cease in the rational species, it is said that the soul has "died" and passed away into the flow of nature. But if the soul returns to its primary state and remembers its realm even slightly, it is said to have "come to life" from its death. Then, it clings to the meaning it has remembered, exploring it and searching for it and for all the meanings it had previously forgotten.

Whenever the soul intellectually perceives something it had forgotten, its vision becomes clearer, its health strengthens, and its sickness departs. At that moment, it perceives through its intellectual sight that everything it witnesses in the world of sense is merely the "phantoms" of things, and not the things in reality—much like a shadow is truly the shadow of an object upon the earth or water.