Proclus • on Theurgy
ত To speak of theurgy in late Platonism in general is a useful standardization of modern academic research but which may limit our understanding of what is envisaged as a complex and polyvalent phenomenon which in its different facets is designated by several names: hietarike techne, telestike, katharmoi, mystagogy, theosophy, hiera hagisteia, theagogia, he theia episteme, hierourgia, theon therapeia, telesiourgy, etc.
However, there seems to be lacking a discussion of theurgy as a philosophical praxis.
Proclus’s Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements contains one of the most important discussions of the nature of mathematical objects and preserves a wealth of historical information about mathematics from antiquity.
The Commentary, taken as a whole, concerns the practice of “inner theurgy,” mental rituals used by advanced students to raise the soul beyond its assigned bounds.
Their practices are meant to be understood in the context of the philosophical paideia of which it represents its final stage and consummation; they are developed by intricate hermeneutics of a poetic theology operated by very sophisticated conceptions of symbol, analogy and the imagination, all of which are at the base of the celestial-terrestrial correspondences used by theurgists in their hymn singing.
Proclus refers to theurgists as pálai sophoi, the ancient sages to whom the hieratic art was revealed, thus making of theurgy an equivalent to standard, traditional divine service.
ত His explanation of theurgy is : ❝Theourgikē dynamis, which is more excellent than all human wisdom, and comprehends divination’s good (mantikés agathē), the purifying powers in the accomplishment of the rites,and all such things as are the effects of divine possession (éntheou katakoíes energēmata).❞
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