Theurgy

Cosmology and Daimons as intermediaries

Daimons out of place

unexpected supernatural intervention

imagining evil daimons

rites of relocation - exorcism and hostile magic

Daimons in place

daimons as the spirits of the dead

guardian daimons

Theory of Theurgy

divine part of human being

mind - nous or pneuma

soul - psyche

body - soma

becoming like the gods

cosmic sympathy - all things in the cosmos interrelate

Shift from locative to utopian cosmology

daimons as archons of the world

rites of relocation - escape of spirits in exile

Mechanics of Theurgy

systasis - meeting with the god

invocation vs. ascent

bringing down the gods - statues and symbols

rising up to the gods - anagoge

lightening - pneuma and the sun's rays

paths and ways - conduit and iunx

passwords and guardians

immortalization and release from fate

Issues for Discussion:

What is the appeal of theurgy for thinkers in the first several centuries CE?

What does Johnston identify as different about theurgy from earlier religious forms?

How does theurgy fit in to Smith's categories of locative and utopian religious cosmologies?

Theurgy as magic vs. religion -contrast the attacks of Porphyry and Plotinus with the defenses of Iamblichus, Sallustius, and Proclus

Theurgy and theory - how does formulating theories fight against charge of magic?

Ritual procedures in the Mithras Liturgy - what (in order), who, when/where, why, how

Compare Mithras Liturgy and Eighth Book of Moses

Historical context of theurgy

Chaldaean Oracles

Julian the Chaldaean

Julian the Theurgist

Marcus Aurelius (2^nd century CE)

Theurgy and Neoplatonism in the Roman Empire

Plotinus (205-269/270 CE)

Porphyry (232-305 CE)

Iamblichus (250-325 CE)

Proclus (412-485 CE)

Damascius (462-539 CE)

Psellus - Michael Psellus (c.1019-1078)

Theurgy, Christianity, and Paganism in the Roman Empire

Constantine (272-337 CE)

Flavius Claudius Julianus (331-363CE) - Julian the Apostate

Maximus of Ephesus (d. 370 CE) and Sallustius

Theurgy and Elitism

Academic and Imperial circles

parent-child relation in transmission

theurgy and theology - Porphyry vs. Iamblichus

theurgy vs. goetia - religion and magic

Plato, Symposium, 203a

Daimons, you know, are halfway between god and man.

What powers have they, then? I asked

They are the envoys and interpreters that ply between heaven and earth, flying upward with our worship and our prayers, and descending with the heavenly answers and commandments, and since they are between the two estates they weld both sides together and merge them into one great whole. They form the medium of the prophetic arts, of the priestly rites of sacrifice, initiation, and incantation, of divination and of sorcery, for the divine will not mingle directly with the human, and it is only through the mediation of the spirit world that man can have any intercourse, whether waking or sleeping, with the gods. And the man who is versed in such matters is said to have spiritual powers, as opposed to the mechanical powers of the man who is expert in the more mundane arts. There are many daimons, and many kinds of daimons, too, and Love is one of them.

Plato, Phaedo 107e-108b

For after death, as they say, the daimon of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together for judgment, whence they go into the world below, following the guide who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have there received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. Now this journey to the other world is not, as Aeschylus says in the "Telephus," a single and straight path-no guide would be wanted for that, and no one could miss a single path; but there are many partings of the road, and windings, as I must infer from the rites and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul is conscious of her situation and follows in the path; but the soul which desires the body, and which, as I was relating before, has long been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after many struggles and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant daimon, and when she arrives at the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds, or been concerned in foul murders or other crimes which are the brothers of these, and the works of brothers in crime-from that soul everyone flees and turns away; no one will be her companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, she is borne irresistibly to her own fitting habitation; as every pure and just soul which has passed through life in the company and under the guidance of the gods has also her own proper home.

Menander fr. 550

A daimon is appointed as a mystagogue for every person as soon as he is born.

Heraclitus fr. 121

Character (ethos) is fate (daimon) for humans.

Proclus on Alcibiades I, 78

The guardian spirit alone moves, controls and orders all our affairs, since it perfects the reason, moderates the emotions, infuses nature, maintains the body, supplies accidentals, fulfils the decree of fate and bestows the gifts of providence; and this one being is ruler of all that lies in us and concerns us, steering our whole life."

Plotinus Ennead III.4

The Timaeus indicates the relation of this guiding spirit to ourselves: it is not entirely outside of ourselves; is not bound up with our nature; is not the agent in our action; it belongs to us as belonging to our Soul, but not in so far as we are particular human beings living a life to which it is superior: take the passage in this sense and it is consistent; understand this Spirit otherwise and there is contradiction. And the description of the Spirit, moreover, as "the power which consummates the chosen life," is, also, in agreement with this interpretation; for while its presidency saves us from falling much deeper into evil, the only direct agent within us is some thing neither above it nor equal to it but under it: Man cannot cease to be characteristically Man.

Chaldaean Oracles fr. 224 (Porphyry, De philosophia ex oraculis 130ff)

Create a statue, purified in the manner I shall teach you. Make the body of mountain rue and adorn it with little animals, with domestic lizards, and when you have crushed a mixture of myrrh, styrax, and frankincense, blend it with these creatures, go out into the open air under a waxing moon and perform the rite by saying this prayer.

Julian, Hymn to the Mother of the Gods 172ce

It has also been demonstrated that the god's rays are by nature uplifting; and this is due to his energy, both visible and invisible, by which very many souls have been lifted up out of the region of the senses, because they were guided by that sense which is dearest of all and is most nearly like the sun. ... And if I should touch on the secret teaching of the Mysteries in which the Chaldaean, divinely frenzied, celebrated the God of the Seven Rays, that god through whom he lifts up the souls of men, I should be saying what is unintelligible, yea wholly unintelligible to the common herd, but familiar to the happy theurgists.

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 110. "Seek out the channel of the soul, from where it <descended> in a certain order to serve the body; <and> seek <how> you will raise it [the soul] up again to its order by combining (ritual) action with a sacred word." That is, [Psellus comments,] seek the source of the soul, from where (the soul) had been led astray and has served the body; and how someone, raising it up and awakening it by means of telestic rites, might lead it back up from where it has come.

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 124 Those who, by inhaling, drive out the soul, are free.

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 123 And (the order of angels) causes a separation with matter by "... lightening (the soul) with a warm breath [pneuma]," and causing a rising up through the anagogic life. For the "warm breath [pneuma]" is the sharing of life.

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 116 For the divine is accessible not to mortals who think corporally, but to all those who, naked, hasten upward toward the heights.

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 115 You must hasten toward the light and toward the rays of the Father, from where the soul, clothed in mighty intellect, has been sent to you.

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 122 How does the order of angels cause the soul to ascend? 'By making the souls bright with fire.'

Chaldaean Oracles, Fr. 130 Drawing in the flowering flames which come down from the Father.