"The metaphysical framework was provided by Neo-Platonism; but all efforts that had been made, from Pseudo-Dionysus and Erigena onwards, to adapt Neo-Platonism to Christian beliefs were discounted. The pantheism of Plotinus, so far from being slurred over, was emphasized. The Brethren of the Free Spirit did not hesitate to say: 'God is all that is', 'God is in every stone and in each limb of the human body as surely as in the Eucharistic bread', 'Each created thing is divine'. At the same time they took over Plotinus' own interpretation of this pantheism. It was the eternal essence of things, not their existence in time, that was truly God; whatever had a separate, transitory existence had emanated from God, but no longer was God. On the other hand whatever existed was bound to yearn for its Divine Origin and to strive to find its way back to that Origin; and at the end of time everything would, in fact, be reabsorbed in God. No emanation would remain, nothing would exist in separateness, there would no longer be anything capable of knowing, wishing, acting. All that would be left would be one single Essence, changeless, inactive; one all-embracing 'Blessedness'. Even the Persons of the Trinity, the Brethren of the Free Spirit insisted, would be submerged in that undifferentiated One. At the end of time, God really would be All.

Even now reabsorption was the fate of the human soul as soon as the body was dead. On the death of the body the soul disappeared into its Divine Origin like a drop of water which has been taken from a jug and then dropped back in again, or like a drop of wine in the sea. This doctrine amounted, of course, to an assurance of a universal, though impersonal, salvation;and the more consistent of the Brethren of the Free Spirit did, in fact, hold that heaven and hell were merely states of the soul in this world and that there was no after-life of punishment or reward...

...Plotinus had held that human beings could even experience something of this reabsorption before the death of the body. It was possible for the soul to escape from its sensual bonds and from its awareness of itself and to sink for a moment, motionless and unconsious, into the One. This was the aspect of Neo-Platonism which appealed to the Brethren of the Free Spirit."

- The Pursuit of the Millenium, Norman Cohn,
1993