Transcription
Ancient traditions of ceremonial extend to us from as far back as shamanic cultures. Examining these, it becomes clear that the religious expression of humanity, from ancient times to modern, possesses several common terms: like prayer, devotion, such as the presentation of offerings, and some form of symbolic image, item, gesture, or narrative. These traditions of spiritual development, or rather soul development, so to speak, have occupied a significant space within contemporary dialogues on both antique religio-philosophical traditions and magic.
In this episode, we'll be exploring the history, theory, and practice of theurgy from its earliest extant materials to the present day. If you'd like to support me in my continued production of high-value, free documentary presentations informed by rigorous scholarship and experiential insights, for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month, you can help me continue to produce content for the Arcanum channel. I also encourage you to subscribe to the free weekly Arcanum newsletter for exclusive content and deep dives into esotericism, magic, alchemy, divination, astrology, initiation, and more. See the links in the description of this video, and as always, I thank current and past contributors for their generous support. I'm Ike Baker, and this is Arcano. [Music]
Theurgy, or theoria, is an ancient Greek word meaning "god-working," but could perhaps more accurately be defined as "divine action." For a more elaborative definition, let's look at the third and fourth-century author of the text arguably most central to our understanding of theurgy: Iamblichus of Chalcis. It is the ritual accomplishment of ineffable acts performed divinely, surpassing any intellectual processes and the power of unspeakable symbols known only to the gods that accomplish theurgic union. And from Professor Gregory Shaw's modern classic text on the theurgic Neoplatonism of Iamblichus, entitled *Theurgy and the Soul*, quote: "Like the Egyptian cult, the theurgists imitated the gods, and Iamblichus said that every theurgic observance was a ritualized cosmogony that endowed embodied souls, regardless of their station in life, with the divine responsibility of creating and preserving the cosmos. Theurgy is a way of manifesting the will and beauty of the gods."
Iamblichus did indeed pen one of the most important texts on the religio-philosophical theoretical bases of theurgy, which was originally titled *The Reply of Master Abammon to Porphyry's Letter to Anebo*, and was later given the title *On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians* by the 15th-century translator Marsilio Ficino. *On the Mysteries*, as it is most commonly referred to, or *De Mysteriis* in Ficino's Latin, was essentially a massive response to a letter written by the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry. This letter was referred to as the *Letter of Porphyry to the Egyptian prophet Anebo*, in which Porphyry attempts an attack on the religio-philosophical basis of theurgic ceremonial, influenced largely by his teacher Plotinus' development of Platonic philosophy. Porphyry posits several problems or inconsistencies with certain concepts central to theurgy. For Platonic philosophy of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus, see the two-part series I produced entitled "What is Neoplatonism?" Plotinus, Porphyry's teacher, was a major figure in late Platonic philosophical communities and was a proponent of a more contemplative approach to divine union, or enosis, which he stated was also the goal of theurgy, mainly to do with Plotinus' belief that the individual soul of a human being was not entirely "unquote" descended into the material cosmos, whereas Iamblichus believed in the full descent of the soul. We'll speak more on this in a few moments.
In Iamblichus' response, written under the guise of an Egyptian priest named Abammon, he demonstrates how many of Porphyry's challenges were themselves based on uninformed or misinformed assumptions regarding many of the core religio-philosophical tenets underscoring theurgy. His work is an extremely impressive display of the profound grasp of Platonic philosophy, cosmology, and metaphysics which Iamblichus clearly had, as well as a deep familiarity with the religious cultists of the Egyptians. Scholar Crystal Addey has suggested that rather than bearing an authentic philosophical gripe with Iamblichus, Porphyry—sometimes interpreted to be the teacher of Iamblichus, though this is not a consensus view among scholars—was using his series of challenges as a kind of dialectical and pedagogical device, "softballing" him, so to speak, enabling Iamblichus to hone and articulate his thesis. Again, here scholars disagree as to whether or not this was actually the case.
The earliest references to theurgy, however, are from a mostly lost text referred to as the Chaldean Oracles, believed to have been written in the second century by a father and son referred to as Julian the Theurgist and his father, Julian the Chaldean. The details of their lives remain obscure, and the Chaldean Oracles come to us as fragments, quotes from it, and commentaries on it in the writings of the Neoplatonic philosophers such as Iamblichus, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus. From what comes to us, the Chaldean Oracles seem to be a collection of sayings allegedly handed down from the gods, characterized by both a basis in metaphysical philosophy and theology, as well as the enigmatic quality of prophecy. In the introduction to her translation of the fragments of the Chaldean Oracles, scholar Ruth Major writes, quote: "Julian, like his father, was also a practitioner of magic, or more precisely, theurgy; thus his surname, 'the Theurgist.' Indeed, it may well be that the oracles themselves were transmitted via the theurgic technique of calling and receiving, with Julian the Theurgist functioning as the medium through whom Julian the Chaldean extracted oracles from Plato's soul." The oracle seemed to have contained a theology and metaphysic which repeatedly compared the divine mind, or nous, and its creative activity to fire and the luminosity or radiance of fire.
As a type of esoteric practice, theurgy is often compared to and contrasted with the art and practice of conjuration of spiritual entities, which differs from theurgy ultimately in intent. The stated end goal of enosis—union with the higher-order entities—is not typical of goetic magic; otherwise, it'd be theurgy. If we were to place an ancient theurgist and an ancient goetic magician side-by-side performing their rites, it's likely there would be ostensibly very little appreciable difference in what they're doing, at least to the untrained eye. Another goal of the practice was theosis: it was thought that through enosis, or union with the divinities and the divine mind, the theurgist would achieve theosis and become like a deity, deities, and the divine. Another difference between theurgy and other types of Hellenic spiritual endeavor and religio-philosophical practice is that theurgy is essentially anagogic, coming from the word "anagog," meaning that it seeks to elevate the soul in an ascent through the heavenly spheres—the Platonic agad—leading it to the noetic realm, or the realm of intelligibles, uniting with and peering into the mind of the divine. For more on this, check out the episode I did entitled "The Myth of Er." Whereas several pre-Platonic, Socratic religio-philosophical traditions are focused on katabases, or descent into the mythological underworld, as mentioned earlier, the line between theurgy and Goetia, in reality, is not practically so distinct. For instance, in the collection of magical and religious texts spanning around half a millennium known as the Greek Magical Papyri, there are rituals utilizing both goetic and theurgic formulae and intentions. The theurgic components are often cited as specifically being found in religious texts like the Mithras Liturgy. But observing the techniques of theurgy is not entirely true. Dr. Steven Skinner, in his groundbreaking doctoral thesis, which has since been published as *Techniques of Greco-Egyptian Magic*, defines magic as a technique, a craft, or skill like many others, divorcing the word from any perceived necessity towards spiritual purification and development. But theurgy is the application of the techniques—the techne—of magic to exactly those ends: purification and elevation of the soul to divine union. That's why it looks so much like magic; it is, in its most practical sense, comprised of magical techniques.
Let's look at some of the major techniques of theurgy, both ancient and modern. Yes, there are modern theurgists, and we'll get to them further on in this episode. From what is available to us by way of the writings of theurgic philosophers like Iamblichus, Proclus, Olympiodorus, the fragments of Syrianus, and the Chaldean Oracles, we may, in some instances, be certain and, in others, extrapolate that theurgic ritual is comprised of these several techniques: epiclesis and prooik invocation and prayer; the use of baraoma, or anomata, names and words of evocation, oftentimes consisting of a long series of vowels. These names and words, while not always bearing any definite meaning or attribution, were thought to have an inexplicable efficacy in calling forth spiritual entities; theomorphia, the identification with a deity for the purpose of commanding their powers; theophagia, the ritualistic partaking of and communion with a deity through the consumption of foods, portables, or combustibles thought to be infused with their divine essence. This was not limited to physically consumable items; this was also thought to be true of their symbols. Stik perfection or consecration, particularly of agalmata, or deity statues, to be animated by the theurgist. This was predicated on the idea that the theurgist was performing something called micosis—that they were "insouling" an object with a particular spiritual or deific potency. While the systems of Plotinus' theoria and Iamblichus' theurgy differed, it is a mistake to see their techniques as absolutely mutually exclusive. Theurgists use techniques of theoria—divine contemplation—to noetically elevate their souls; however, they believed that theoria without theurgy was insufficient. Theurgists focused intensely on the agōgē sōma, the luminous or radiant body, the body of light. It was in this radiant body that the theurgist was thought to receive the theophagy—the revelation of the deity. In a sense, all theurgy was theurgy of the luminous body. The major technique in this work was called photogia—the drawing in of the light. We'll delve further into photogia later in this episode. These practices were referred to by Iamblichus mainly to the ancient Egyptians, Chaldeans, or Babylonians and Assyrians, rather than to the Greek philosophers. In a way, Iamblichus insisted in promoting theurgy as a countermeasure to the Greek rationalism which, according to him, had effectively impeded the Hellenic philosophical tradition from achieving the heights to which it aspired. According to Iamblichus, and sent to the later Platonic scholar and commentator Proclus, rational, discursive contemplation was not enough for enosis or henosis and theosis; rather, a transrational or suprational experience was necessary. Quote: "Intellectual understanding does not connect theurgists with the gods; for what would prevent those who philosophize theoretically from having theurgic union with them? It is the perfect accomplishment of ineffable acts religiously performed beyond all understanding. We do not accomplish these acts by our thinking; for then their efficacy would be intellectual and depend upon us. The symbols themselves, on their own, perform the work, and the ineffable power of the gods to whom these symbols belong recognizes itself in its own images; it is not awakened to this by our thinking."
But to the ancient theurgist, theurgy also demands more than solely rites and rituals; it also requires a specific ethical development, the pursuit of philosophy, even specific dietary protocols. Theurgy was, and is today, or should be in order to be worthy of the name, a way of existing in this world. Not just anyone could practice theurgy; in fact, according to the 6th-century Neoplatonic philosopher Olympiodorus and others, the theurgist must first be a philosopher and pursue the acquisition of specific virtues. This sequential system of virtues, inclusive of but also greater than the aretology, or ethical system of virtue and well-being in the Platonic dialogues, is often referred to as the "Ladder of Virtues," and it corresponds to a sequence of study of specific Platonic dialogues. This trajectory of 12 Platonic dialogues is often alternately referred to as the "Iamblichean curriculum," and according to a document dating to the Alexandrian school's late period known as an anonymous prolegomena to Platonic philosophy, and from the works of the late Platonic philosopher Olympiodorus of Alexandria and the last Platonic scholar Damascius, this acquisition of virtues was prerequisite for the practice of theurgy. In the school of Iamblichus, the prolegomena also says the philosopher was to study the *Organon* of Aristotle, a collection of six of his works on logical analysis and dialectic method.
The Ladder of Virtues is organized into three sections: mundane, philosophical, and hieratic, and proceeds as follows: the mundane virtues—natural virtue (physikos), ethical/habituated virtue (ethikos); the philosophical virtues—civic virtue (politikos), purificatory virtue (kathartikos), contemplative virtue (theoretikos); the virtues beyond philosophy—paradigmatic virtue (Paradigmaticos), theurgic/hieratic virtue (theurgikos). There is evidence for the existence of a curriculum, at least in part, coming together during the Middle Platonic era and being further systematized by virtues in accordance with the philosophical bia of Plotinus and, to a lesser degree, Porphyry. However, it is Iamblichus who orients the curriculum towards theurgy specifically, to which he adds the paradigmatic and hieratic virtues.
First of the mundane virtues, natural virtue is chiefly concerned with virtues considered inherent or innate. In *The Republic*, Socrates avers that there are certain inborn characteristics which incline an individual to philosophical pursuits. These he lists as an inclination toward and vigorous pursuit of truth, an orientation toward abstract thinking signifying the Platonic Forms, and a freedom from absolute compulsion to worldly pleasures and material gain. These attributes, being innate in the philosopher, are prerequisite and natural to one who is to begin this training. Ethical, or habituated, virtue, rather than being innate, is something acquired as a product of study and training, conforming more or less with traditional societal conventions. For instance, in order to begin a study of philosophy, the student must have some acquaintance with basic educational preliminaries in mathematics, grammar, logic, etc. Therefore, the curriculum began in earnest with the civic virtue, leading on to the philosophical virtues of purificatory and contemplative. This was when the suitable student would undergo a process of self-cross-examination in an effort to view the organization or disorganization of the parts of their soul. In Plato's *Phaedo*, the third dialogue of this curriculum, the student is introduced to the tripartite nature of the soul, which is to say its appetitive, spirited, and rational aspects. The disorganization, and therefore error, of the soul is when the appetites and emotions rule over the internal atmosphere and dictate one's behavior. Instead, the lower parts of the soul—the spirited and the appetitive—must willingly acquiesce to rule by the higher, or rational, part of the soul. This balancing of the internal *polis*, so to speak, is where the textual curriculum and the philosophical virtues begin. In civic virtue, corresponding to the dialogues *Laches*, *Charmides*, and *Gorgias*, according to Olympiodorus, purificatory virtue can be explained as reason in reversion upon the self. By this point, the soul will have become liberated from non-rational or irrational behaviors, thoughts, and motivations. Liberation of the soul enables it to revert its observational and contemplative capabilities upon itself, apprehending and illuminating the heretofore shadowy recesses of the interior psyche. According to Olympiodorus, purificatory virtue is corresponded to the dialogue *Phaedo*. Contemplative virtue included the dialogues *Cratylus*, *Theaetetus*, *Sophist*, *Statesman*, *Phaedrus*, *Symposium*, and *Philebus*. Upon the completion of this section of the curriculum—indeed, and not merely in word—we encounter two further virtues which elevate the practitioner from complete philosopher to priest and theurgist. Paradigmatic virtue is acquired by the embodiment of the paradigm of the Demiurge by the philosopher-priest. At this stage, one becomes as the Demiurgos—the craftsman or creative deity of the cosmos. This occurs in contemplation and apprehension of the intelligible Forms within the divine intellect. At this point, I should mention that there are two terms in the Platonic tradition—sensibles and intelligibles—that you will be hearing a lot. Sensibles refer to things that can be grasped or apprehended by the senses, whereas intelligibles can only be grasped by the reasoning function or mind, nous. Theurgic virtue is the culmination in the duly initiated theurgist—one who is qualified to practice the theurgic rites, consisting of, as we have mentioned, rites of divine union, or enosis. Quote: "For all theurgists, the leading up of the soul is not simple dialectical ascent supported by pure contemplations, but a sacramental or ritual event, the ineffable mystigogy, which includes a sort of mystical arithmology and produces various degrees of illumination based on the concept of a luminous solar body, agōgē sōma, able to receive the divine light."
A central component of theurgy, mentioned earlier, was the purification and rectification of the agōgē sōma and the ochema. These terms are used fairly interchangeably within the literature, with some nuance. This idea of the ochema—the spiritual or pneumatic vehicle—is Platonically derived from the *Timaeus*, where the Demiurge—creative deity—fashions the cosmos, the soul of the cosmos, into a sphere predicated on a divine model which he crafted before the cosmos as a "moving image of eternity," a model of eternity as time. The souls of human beings were then fashioned from like substance, crafted in part from the "unquote" leftovers of the world-soul and partaking of both the eternal and finite substances in soul and body. It was therefore considered by the Platonists that the soul was spherical in form and nature, this being a perfect form modeled upon the image of the eternal. Quote: "The divine motions that are akin to the divine in us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. We should each therefore attend to these motions, and by learning about the harmonious circuits of the universe repair the damage done at birth to the circuits in our head and so restore understanding and what is understood to their original likeliness to each other. When that is done, we shall have achieved the goal set us by the gods." [Music]
If we recall the cosmological scheme of the Platonic nested spheres of the Myth of Er in Book 10 of *The Republic*—see my video—and we understand the idea of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of the soul from the hypercosmic or psychic realm to the phenomenal realm and attachment to physical bodies, Porphyry explains the descent of the soul in a treatise known as *On What is Up to Us*, dealing with fate and determinism. He explains that as the soul descends back through the cosmos on its way to terrestrial embodiment from beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, it receives both a vice and a virtue from the planetary spheres corresponding to their dual nature in the embodied cosmos, which, in the *Timaeus*, is created from a juxtaposition and binding of the Same and the Different—duality. These vices and virtues he refers to as accretions—meaning something piled or heaped on—he also refers to them as astral garments. This is how astrology factors into the natal chart; it is important; it gives us a schematic of character—how, due to the influences upon our microcosm at the point of incarnation, the planets have inclined our disposition and character. It does not, however, mean, according to the theurgists, that we are absolutely and indelibly imprinted with these patterns beyond the shadow of a hope of being able to transcend them. Indeed, that's one of the purposes and consequences, to a degree, of theurgy itself. Things divine are not attainable by mortals who understand the body alone; only those who are stripped of their garments may attain the summit. We see in the Corpus Hermeticum a nearly identical journey described in Corpus Hermeticum 13, except corresponding to 12 divisions rather than eight and an ascent involving the divestature of specific vices at each planetary sphere. In the *Pymander*, the human being rushes up through the cosmic framework: at the first zone, surrendering the energy of increase and decrease; at the second, evil machination—a device now inactive; at the third, the illusion of longing—now inactive; at the fourth, the ruler's arrogance—now freed of excess; at the fifth, unholy presumption and daring recklessness; at the sixth, the evil impulses that come from wealth—now inactive; and at the seventh zone, the deceit that lies in ambush. And then, stripped of the effects of the cosmic framework, the human enters the region of the agad; he has his own proper power, and along with the blessed, he hymns the Father. "Withdraw unto thyself, and it will come—will, and it comes to pass. Throw out of work the body's senses, and thy divinity shall come to birth. Purge from thyself the brutish torments. Things of matter torment: the first is this not knowing son; the second one is grief; the third intemperance; the fourth concupiscence; the fifth unrighteousness; the sixth avarice; the seventh error; the eighth is envy; the ninth guile; the 10th is anger; 11th rashness; the 12th is malice. These are in number 12, but under them are many more, my son, and creeping through the prison of the body, they force the man that's placed therein to suffer in his senses, but they depart—though not all at once—from him who hath been taken pity on by God, and this it is which constitutes the manner of rebirth." So here we have the entire telos—the purpose of theurgy itself—to resurrect the soul while in its descended state, a state of confusion simply due to its eternal unbound luminous nature being bound to and hallucinated by the finite, limited, and darkened material bodies—being both in a physical human vehicle and within the body of the physical cosmos—a body within a body. Yet for the theurgists, matter was not evil; rather, if the soul, in its hallucinated, confused state, chose to follow the inclinations of matter, it would be pulled down further away and abstracted gradually from its inherent nature. From the *Enneads* of Plotinus, quote: "The soul is a divine being and dwells in more heavenly places, but has entered body. The soul is a minor god, a derivative aspect of the divine, but compelled by its powers and due to its tendency to bring order to whatever is beneath it, it penetrates to this lower sphere—the material world—in a voluntary plunge. If it turns back quickly, all is well; it will not be injured by acquiring the knowledge of evil and coming to understand sin. But the soul may dive too deep into matter and linger too long and get stuck." From Corpus Hermeticum 10: "The key for it is possible, my son, that a man's soul should be made like to God, even while it still is in a body, if it doth contemplate the beauty of the good. But if a soul, on entering the body of a man, persisteth in its vice, it neither tasteth deathlessness or shareth in the good; it neither tasteth deathlessness nor shareth in the good; but speeding back again it turns into the path that leads to creeping things. This is the sentence of the vicious soul, and the soul's vice is ignorance; for that the soul who hath no knowledge of the things that are, or knowledge of their nature, or of good, is blinded by the body's passions and tossed about. This wretched soul, not knowing what she is, becomes the slave of bodies of strange form in sorry plight, bearing the body as a load, not as the ruler but the ruled. This is the soul's vice." [Music] [Music]
The Iamblichus believed this luminous vehicle to be one and indestructible, but had become oluded, impure, or really imbalanced; it lost the harmony of its prototype of the soul of the cosmos. Therefore, the luminous vehicle must be purified in order to be made a chord—a space or container within which the theurgist receives the gods. The soul must be made receptive to the energies and natures of the divine. How is this done? Primarily photogia, or the drawing in of the light. Professor Shaw writes once again in *Theurgy and the Soul*, quote: "The doctrine of the soul vehicle—ochema—in the Platonic tradition is essential for understanding the manner in which the later Platonists visualized immortality. Referred to by Iamblichus as a vehicle—ochema—or breath—pneuma—the perfection of this etheric and luminous body affected the soul's immortalization through the purifying light given by the gods. In the embodied soul was freed of its particular popularity and established in its starry vehicle—the agōgē ochema—like the spherical bodies of the universe and stars for whom embodiment was simply adornment and revelation. The spherical body gained in theurgic rituals established the soul as immortal, yet still allowed for the multitude of activities engaged in by immortal and embodied soul. Iamblichus says, 'Wherefore also our vehicle is made spherical and is moved circularly whenever the soul is especially assimilated to nous.'" It was within his luminous and spherical vehicle that the theurgist received visions and was unified with the gods; yet this unification did not deny the multiplicity of his mortal life, for the sphere, Iamblichus says, is capable of containing multiplicity, which indeed makes it truly divine—that not departing from its oneness, it governs all the multitude. The theurgist became spherical; he took on a divine appearance, but remained a man. Iamblichus says that theurgic contact may be awakened when light is cast on a wall prepared with sacred inscriptions of characters, although he does not describe these characters in any detail. Proclus, in his commentary on the *Timaeus*, says the he was the character or shape most evocative for recollecting the divinization of the world and our souls. The characters mentioned by Iamblichus probably included this he or X and other symbols that corresponded to the planetary gods. Subsequent Arabic Hermeticists described such planetary characters and claimed that their science derived from theurgists. The entire kind of divination that you describe, while of many kinds, is contained in a single power which may be called "drawing in the light." This power illuminates with divine light the ethereal and luminous vehicle surrounding the soul, from which divine visions take possession of our imaginative faculty, being moved by the will of the gods; for the entire life of the soul and all its powers, when directed by the gods, are moved however the lords of the soul wish, and this occurs in two ways: either when the gods are present with the soul or when they shine into the soul a certain advanced light coming from themselves. Importantly, breath work seems to, in some way, be associated with theurgic ascent, according to the Chaldean Oracles, quote: "The theurgists thrust out of
Their bodies by inhaling."
Having thus prepared oneself sufficiently by theic rights and the lifestyle which is part and parcel of theic practice, the theist was then primed to receive a vision of the divine, the theophaneia, the revelation of the deity. The soul meets the gods not as an individual escaping from the cosmos, but as an agent of cosmogenesis, through whom the gods express themselves in the soul's theurgic activity. And the specific faculty of the soul in which these theologies occur is the fantasticon, the soul's power of imagination. Our attention and mind follow what happens, since the divine light does not touch them, but the imagination, fantasia, is divinely inspired; for it is stirred into modes of imagination from the gods, not from itself, and it is utterly changed from what is ordinarily human.
There's something here that's really important that I think will resonate with practitioners that understand the phenomenology of interaction with spiritual entities, and it has to do with the use of the imagination, or to borrow the term coined by Henri Corbin, the imaginal. Many startling, existentially jarring, and affirming experiences occur in the imaginative work of a magician. Yet in our post-modern paradigm, we're apt to second-guess ourselves because the imagination is thought to be bunk, complete fantasy. Yet here we have Iamblichus saying something significant, and that is that the mind and the attention follow what happens; you become a passive observer while the imaginative figure, the simulacrum generated by this power of the soul, the mind's eye, is seized by divinity, given its own autonomy and raised to a life divine.
So the next time some smarmy nihilist calls energy work and vision work "new age," having nothing to do with antique magic, you can tell them to get bent. Unless you're a theologist, and then you can just darken the skies and float away peacefully ahead of the lightning storm that you're about to create.
Finally, we should talk about hierarchy. Some might balk at this word; however, to the theorist, the cosmos was very obviously ordered, and it is—we can see that without equivocation. Things exist; therefore, the divine, perhaps its characteristic act as the creative demiurge, orders things, meaning it forms and binds all phenomenal things by a series of relationships. Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean theologists such as Iamblichus saw this order most perfectly reflected in number, zero being the empty plenum from which the numerical sequence unfolded. They also saw the relationship and stratification of the terrestrial, or empyreal, elements as a kind of vertical chain. The text talks about the elements from most dense to most rarified. They also saw the various kingdoms of the earth in a kind of verticality: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and human. The mineral can normally be considered in the earth or of the earth, whereas the vegetable has a part in the earth—the roots—and a part growing up away from the earth—the stalk, the shoot, the leaves, the flowers. Animals are not rooted in the earth; they move around, they crawl around on all fours, or they slither. The human being, bipedal, raises its skull, which was thought to be the seat of the loisticon, the rational soul, even higher. And in all this there is a verticality, not to mention the order and characteristics of the planets relative to their distance from, closest to farthest from, the earth, so on and so forth. So they conceived of an ontology, a study of being, which ultimately depended on a great chain of being, using the analogy of verticality to represent proximity from the One to the many, from the absolute to the phenomenal. This proximity ultimately demonstrated their concept of ontological primacy. Iamblichus writes, "And thus from on high to the lowest things, the Egyptian doctrine concerning principles begins from the One and proceeds into multiplicity, and the multitude in turn is governed by the One, and everywhere the indefinite nature is ruled by a certain defined measure and by the highest uniform cause of all things."
The hierarchies of spiritual beings aren't just arbitrary lists of different spooky entities. These entities, the gods and what Iamblichus refers to as the greater kinds, are stratified according to certain functions, primarily categoric or anagogic activities and ontological activities. They elaborate a metaphysical order and an ontological sequence. Proclus would later form these into ontological chains which he called the siri, at the head of which was an Ennead, a pre-essential god consisting of its own essence and needing nothing else. These pre-essential gods are considered to be at the pinnacle of existence itself and require nothing outside of themselves, drawing, it is believed, ultimately from Proclus. The fifth-century Neoplatonist and Christian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite elaborates a hierarchical system of spiritual beings which he imported into Christianity. We'll compare Pseudo-Dionysius's hierarchy with the hierarchy of Iamblichus delineated in On the Mysteries: hypercosmic gods, liberated gods, encosmic gods or celestial archons, sub-lunar gods or archons, archangels, angels, daimones, heroes, purified souls. All the names here don't really seem to match up. The way that Pseudo-Dionysius describes each of these powers—the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Authorities, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels—reveals that they are virtually identical in function at each respective level, despite the differences in nomenclature. Pseudo-Dionysius's hierarchy is used in Christian sacramental theology as well as Christian-influenced systems of the outside of official ecclesiastical bounds. The high Christian sacrament of the Eucharist is indeed theurgic in nature, but we'll talk more about that in later episodes.
Iamblichus' hierarchy has specific functions in the practice of theurgic ascent: purification, catharsis, illumination (photismos), perfection (teiosis). The upper levels of the hierarchy were anagogic, or leading upward, while the lower were genoggic, or tending toward generation, toward the material cosmos. Key to theurgic ascent was an entity known as the daimon. The literal meaning of this word is not definitively known, but it has been alternately translated to mean spirit or demon. The etymological root of the word seems to suggest a relationship to the idea of division or bifurcation. Iamblichus delineates three types of daimones or daemons: personal, punitive, and relational or elemental. The personal daimones are in charge of an individual's spiritual development; they watch over an individual's soul as it descends into matter, a sort of psychopomp. Iamblichus writes that the personal daimon "stands over its soul as the fulfiller of the various levels of life of the soul." The personal daimon's general concern is keeping us on track, on script, giving correctives when an individual becomes misaligned with the Good or the One. Interestingly, in the Apology, Socrates states that his own personal daimon never instructs him what to do, but rather warns him about what not to do. This suggests that the personal daimon does not interfere with someone's free will; however, it gives warnings. Personal daimones guide our lives until the theorist achieves a certain level of ascent and begins to engage in the worship of the hypercosmic gods, or the gods which are just beyond the encosmic gods, the gods of and within the material universe. Punitive daimones, as their names would imply, are largely concerned with the judgment and punishment of impure souls. Elemental daimones' general role is overseeing the functions of their particular aspect of the physical world. These daimones are kind of like the elementals of Western magic; they have a single function in the material world. To quote once more from Professor Shaw, "To reach the One, the soul had to be assimilated to the whole, and this was accomplished only by honoring all the gods." Iamblichus admits that noetic theurgy worshipped the One at the summit of the whole multitude of gods; the direct worship of the One came only at the very end of life and to very few in theurgy mysteries. Iamblichus did not reveal the details of this elevated form of theurgy except to say that its method of worship corresponded to the simplicity of its object, the One. Iamblichus writes, "Indeed, before the soul gave itself to the body, it heard the divine harmony plainly; therefore, after it departs into a body and hears the sort of melodies that especially preserve the trace of the divine harmony, it welcomes these and recollects the divine harmony from them; it is drawn to this, makes itself at home with it, and partakes of it as much as possible."
Within the practice, there are different types of practice with corresponding types of syntheta, syntheta being the essence or the signatures of the gods, used and permutated throughout the physical cosmos and in all generated phenomenal things. For the rare and utterly accomplished theologist, the specific noetic theurgy that Iamblichus speaks of, with which one may commune with the One, is devoid of material syntheta, and what happens here is obscure. Material theurgy, however, uses physical tokens, the syntheta and symbula, as well as other things to raise oneself to the lower causes, such as the archons and the daimones. This kind of theurgy is the type most commonly practiced and introduces us to the divine hierarchies. Also included in material theurgy are somewhat less material activities: visible and audible syntheta, which Greg Shaw has termed intermediate syntheta. These were characters, figures, images such as a statue or statuary, and hieroglyphics, even according to tones, sounds, and names. The barbaroi and onomata. Noetic syntheta were strictly of the level of intelligibility and have been speculated to be of an arithmetical, geometrical, or mathematical nature.
At this point we should also mention female theologists of antiquity, as several of those of whom we have record were highly influential and important figures. The first is Aesclepigenia, the Neoplatonist of Athens between 400 and 500 CE. She was the daughter of Plutarch of Athens, and she became one of the esteemed teachers of Proclus, the Platonic successor after her father's death. She either became the scholar of the Neoplatonic school of Athens or the co-colarch of the school with her brother Hyas. And Sirionis, the Neoplatonism Aesclepigenia taught and practiced, "differed greatly from the scientific school of Hipparchus of Alexandria." Her father's philosophy was syncretic; it attempted to unify the principles of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies with seemingly opposing principles of pagan theology and magic. Aesclepigenia was part of this new syncretism. Sosipatra, a Neoplatonist in the city of Pergamum in the 4th century CE, we know about her mostly from Eunapius' Lives of the Sophists. From Cara Minard's Remembering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and Her Communities, "Sosipatra had visions and could prophesy the future, which suggests that her Neoplatonism was Iamblichan." Sosipatra taught her sons, and her lectures were well attended because she inspired students. Her son Antonius moved to the city of Canopus, 12 mi east of Alexandria. Antonius was, like his mother, committed to the Iamblichan version of Neoplatonism. While arguably the most well-known, Hypatia of Alexandria is not necessarily definitively known to have been a theurgist per se, but she was an absolute luminary in mathematics and philosophy.
There are many obvious challenges to the study of female theurgic Neoplatonists of antiquity. For some excellent resources on women in theology and philosophy in antiquity, see Cara Minard's Remembering Ancient Women: Hypatia of Alexandria and Her Communities and Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World, edited by Kimberly Stratton and Dana Culcaris. For more recommended reading and to view the resources I used in the production of this episode, see the video description.
Theurgic tradition has been preserved and transmitted, and we receive it in the modern day by way of various streams, including the Neoplatonism preserved and augmented during the Middle Ages by the Perso-Arabic Islamic cultures. Figures like Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadi and Ibn al-Arabi and others, as well as the Byzantine philosophers and Christian theologians, in particular Michael Psellos and the late Byzantine Platonic philosopher and polytheist Georgios Gemistos Plethon. There are many interesting figures in both of these strains of medieval Neoplatonic theology, but to cover them in further detail is outside of the scope of this introductory episode. We also owe a serious debt to the work of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, particularly by way of his Three Books. The foundation of Agrippa's operative magic rests on what he calls sigilla, signatures, or theurgic syntheta, as well as an anagogic ascent utilizing divine hierarchies and the techniques like epiclesis or telestic, set forth in theurgic practice. The Three Books themselves were significantly influenced by Marsilio Ficino's Three Books on Life. We know that Ficino translated the works of Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, and most of the Corpus Hermeticum. Ficino's own work had to take the guise of a curative regimen for the melancholy of scholars but contained a significant amount of theurgic ideas and theurgy-influenced techniques.
These systems were transmitted or passed down to 19th-century esoteric orders like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis. The foundational documents of the inner Order of the Golden Dawn, penned in the 1890s, called the "Flying Rolls," mention theurgy several times. Among the objects for which you have joined the second order, some are specially named by the obligation which you have taken, and others are indicated by the documents which you have received on loan. Speaking generally, however, we may say that the main object is what is called the higher magic or the development of the spiritual sides of our natures, in contradistinction to the purely intellectual. As regards spiritual development, you promised in the obligation to use every effort to purify and exalt the spiritual nature so that you may be able to unite yourselves with what the Hermeticist calls his higher genius. Now, as regards this spiritual development, in the first place, we mean by it that you perform or endeavor to perform the transmutation of the vital forces of life into higher currents of life, or rather their transmutation out of the lower into the higher so that you can use them for the purpose of theurgy.
In the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the concept of the genius is somewhat tantamount to the personal daimon. Pulling from Thomas Taylor's translation of the Platonic and Neoplatonic works, the brilliant Taylor chose to render the Greek word daimon as genius rather than demon, understandably averse to the connotation that that word would take. This is how it arrives to us in the Golden Dawn. Again, we read in another Flying Roll written by Percy Bullock: "It is not necessary to study occultism in order to become good, but rather to become wise. The means which you are taught to employ are calculated to equilibrate the spiritual nature and implement spiritual growth. The effect of spiritual growth is to extend the consciousness in the direction of divine and superhuman things and correspondingly restrict the automatic consciousness of animal appetites and desires."
The methods handed down by the Golden Dawn tradition are those of divine theurgy. Theōria is the science of communion with planetary spirits, the powers composing the hierarchies of being and gods of light. For more on this within the Golden Dawn, see my essay entitled "On the Work of the Five Equals 6 Hinosis in the Golden Dawn tradition" in Caribbean Press's The Light Extended, a journal of the Golden Dawn, Volume 5. While notably different from the antique, Renaissance, and Fin-de-Siècle conjuration and exorcism magic of Martin de Pasqually's Elus Cohens in the 18th century, referred to itself as theurgy. We'll talk more about the theology of the Elus Cohens in an episode later in the season.
The study and practice of theurgy has many things to teach us in the modern day, not least of all, perhaps the tradition extending into pagan antiquity of the soul's journey: its pristine source, its descent into the trials of matter, the archetypal formula for its extraction from the habituated and hallucinatory state while sojourned here, its recollection of divine powers, forms, and wisdom, and its ultimate return to the center of all things, the undying, ever-loving unity, an entry into that peace which passes all human understanding.
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