Theurgy: Reaching the Gods Through Ritual

Jive Book Review of Theurgy and the Soul by Gregory Shaw, Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College. In this work he outlines the philosophy and ritual practise of Iamblichus of Syria (ca. 240 325), whose teachings set the final form of pagan spirituality prior to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Theurgy literally means "divine action" or "godly work"

I describe how this work is useful for modern polythesists including Heathens like myself.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello, and welcome to another Jive book review. This is
a great book that we're going to be talking about today.
I read it two years ago and I've been meaning
to get around to do a Childe book review about it.
It was especially helpful in preparation for the Pagan Futures
Conference in twenty twenty two, when I was talking about
a Platonic and pagan rebuttal to transhumanist ideology and gnostic ideology.

(00:32):
The book is Theagy and the Soul by Gregory Shaw.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
And.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
It's basically an explanation of the beliefs of the Platonist
neoplatonist philosopher Yamblicus. And I'll just read the blurb. Theagy
and the Soul is a study of Iamblicus of Syria
born about two forty until about three twenty five live AD,

(01:01):
whose teachings set the final form of pagan spirituality prior
to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Gregory Shure focuses
on the theory and practice of theag, the most controversial
and significant aspect of Iamblicus's Platonism. Theagy literally means divine action.

(01:22):
Unlike previous Platonists, whose stressed and the elevated status of
the human soul. The Amblicus taught that the soul descended
completely into the body, and thereby required the performance of
theogic rites revealed by the gods to unite the soul
with the one Iamblicus was once considered one of the
great philosophers, whose views on the soul and the importance

(01:45):
of rich profoundly influenced subsequent Platinists such as Proclus and Damascius.
The Emperor Julian followed Eamblucus's teachings to guide the restoration
of traditional pagan cults in his campaign against Christianity. Although
Julian was unsuccessful, the Amblicus's ideas persisted well into the

(02:06):
Middle Ages and beyond. His vision of a hierarchical cosmos
united by divine ritual became the dominant worldview for the
entire Medieval world European medieval world, and played an important
role in the Renaissance Platonism of Marsilio Ficino. Even Ralph
Walder Emerson wrote that he expected a reading of the

(02:29):
Amblicus to cause a revival in the churches, but modern
scholars have dismissed him, seeing Theagy as ritual magic or
manipulation of the gods. Shaw, however, shows that theogy was
a subtle and intellectually sophisticated attempt to apply Platonic and
Pythegorean teachings to the full expression of human existence in

(02:52):
the material world.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Gregory Shaw is a professor of religious studies at Stonehill College, Massachusetts,
and while this book is quite academic, it's also very
popular with a lot of the modern revivalists of Neoplatonism,
who aren't necessarily academic, just various spiritual people who are

(03:15):
looking for an antidote to the materialist crisis of the times.
And as far as I've been able to discern, sure
is not merely an academic focused on the dry history
of late Antiquity and the ideas that were popular at

(03:36):
the time, but rather is a spiritual seak himself. Apparently
he was formally interested in Eastern traditions, Buddhism, Hinduism, something
along those lines, and found that the Countric Yogic or
whatever practices he was involved in America North America, where
he's from, involved inauthentic sort of portrayals of people of

(04:03):
Western origin pretending to be Indians, basically, and he thought
that that was a bit fake, and as a result
he started to pursue the equivalent intellectual traditions of the West,
which led him to look into plato philosophy, and that
led him, via Thomas Taylor's work on Neoplatonism, to the
Amblicus and Theogy. He has a new book out since

(04:26):
this one. It's just come out, and I believe it's
called Western Tantra or Hellenic Tantra. It's on the same
kind of subject, but it's based on the idea that
this is this theogy is basically the Western equivalent of
Indian doctrines such as found in Tantra and Vedanta, etc.

(04:48):
So it's a sophisticated philosophical school about spiritual enlightenment basically,
but there's more to it than that. And in today's review,
I'll go over some of my favorite votes from the book,
and I'll try and explain how they're relevant specifically to
modern day polytheists, but not just people who are Greco

(05:12):
Roman polytheists as the work was originally intended for, but
also I mean who Yamblicus was speaking to, but also
to modern Heathen revivalists like myself who practiced the Germanic
pagan religion, which is actually potentially one of the most
popular forms of pagan revivals in the modern world. And

(05:32):
although the philosophy of Platonism doesn't have a direct relationship
with Germanic Heathenry, the fact that Yamblicus was trying to
use philosophy the love of wisdom to justify and reinforce
the importance of traditional pagan ritual is worth considering if

(05:56):
you are someone who is attempting to justify traditional pagan
ritual in the modern world, because many of the polemics
launched against Pagans in those times are the same ones
that Pagans have to argue against today, and there's no
point reinventing the wheel. So we can learn a lot
from the work of Jamblicus, and I think Gregory Shaw
has done an excellent job of summarizing and explaining the

(06:21):
philosophy of the Amblicus on why theory is not, as
some nineteenth century Platonic philosophers portray, just a sort of
loss of nerve or departure from the pure materialist logic
of Greek philosophy which they imagined, you know, the Anglo
Victorian kind of like to see him a consistent flow

(06:43):
from you know, the ancients via the Renaissance to the
modern world, which might be argued, but it ignores the
fact that actually the Platonic Academy was filled with spirituality
and that Platonism was its heart a religious doctor, including
a dogma, although one which Playton and authors argued about

(07:04):
so certainly not one that was universally agreed upon. Now
he begins the book and he also mentions to the
blood that this was also the dominant worldview of medieval Europe,
which is christian That's because the Catholic Church early on
in medieval times justified the use of rights as a
way to engage with the God, you know, the highest God,

(07:27):
yar with the Creator. Because even within before Christianity, there
was already this sort of tension within Platonism between the
idea of an unmovable you know, one and unaffected by
any you know, crude rituals and stuff like that. And
this is very much the view of Jamblicus's teacher, Porphyry

(07:50):
the Phoenician, and but Iamblicus was trying in his doctrines
to promote the traditional rituals are associated with pagan Hellenic
Mediterranean world, which didn't just mean Greece, It's spread all
over the Mediterranean. But while also sticking fast to Plato's

(08:17):
teaching as a philosopher and didn't see those as contradictory
like some other Neoplatonists did. And similarly, some you know,
Christians might have thought, like, why do we perform the mass?
If this God is we can't change the nature of
the highest God, so why bother with the mass? But

(08:38):
the theogy justifies the mass. They this this philosophical idea,
so Christians will be interested. If you're a Christian, you
should be interested in this book as well. It's not
just for Pagans. So while this shouldn't be taken as
a doctrine for Heathens to follow, it did certainly it
could just as well be used as a as a
philosophical text of in for Heathens as it is for Christians,

(09:02):
because it's no more Christian than it is Heathen. But
it's become, you know, defined the Christian philosophy where there's
this hierarchical chain linking all things. That was the medieval
worldview of all Christians right up until the Renaissance, and
it comes from this thought, so without further ado, let's

(09:24):
dive into the book. What I'm going to do is
read over some of the quotes that I found most
interesting and talk about what they mean and what their
implications are for us to consider today. Here's a quote
directly from Domestics by the Amblicus. If these forms of
worship were only human customs and received their authority from

(09:47):
cultural habits, one might argue that the culture of the
gods were inventions created by our thinking. But in fact,
the one invoked in sacrifices is a god, and he
presides over these sacrifices, and a great number of gods
and angels surround him, and every race on earth is
allotted a common guardian by this God, and every temple
is also allotted a particular guardian. Now this is very

(10:12):
important for people who try to argue the distinction between
so called focus and universalist religion. I think the argument
is often very crude, and the people who engage in
it often don't really have a great understanding of the
theological implications of iber position. Usually people arguing for a
universalist religion just because they happen to have universalist political

(10:33):
beliefs and vice versa for people who have nationalistic politically
feel they need to argue for a focish view of religion.
And actually the so called focus view of religion is
extent not only among the right wing but also the
left secular left today when they talk about, for example,
closed religious traditions of the Native Americans, which they consider

(10:53):
it an imposition for non natives to adopt or practice
anything comes from Native Americans, consider that theft spiritual theft,
even which these ideas didn't actually really exist in ancient times.
But there was this view of the Amblicus that there
are proper ways of engaging with the Divine, proper to

(11:15):
each people, each race on earth, and each you know,
may each race may have separate gods, that divine personalities
that are specifically sympathetic to them and which it is
right for them to applicate. So there is certainly a
universalism within this platonic doctrine in the sense that they
believe in the gods as being universal, but also a

(11:38):
regional specific focusousness to it, if you want to use
this modern term, where it also recognizes that each tradition
is proper to of different people, and that's and that
these also these gods are real and that they are
preside over the sacrifices, and that's why they are The
authority of the rights comes direct from the gods. And

(12:01):
of course for Heathens that's very important for us, because
we believe that the right of sacrifice the blood was
established by the High One, the Chios, god of all
Odin Shaw writes, as conceived by its principal architect, the Ambloicus,
fears he may be defined as divine activity communally shared.

(12:22):
It is not transcendent knowledge, something that might be grasped
or experienced by an individual. For as the Amblicus put it,
it is impossible to participate individually in the universal orders,
but only in communion with the divine choir of those
lifted up together, united in mind. Now, this is a
very good justification for communal sacrifice, communal ritual blood. We

(12:46):
would say, in an the Heathen condition, you need to
come together. And it's also saying that you can't, you know,
arguing against something. Maybe other Platonists, like his teacher Porphyry,
that you can't really fully engage with the gods just
from theory, theory, cells agonizing over theology and philosophy, and
you get them today posting huge streads on Twitter or

(13:07):
arguing all that video essays about this and that. But really,
the only way, and I believe this as a heathen,
the only way you can reach the gods is through blood.
You can only reach them through ritual. If you're not
performing these rituals like at home, by yourself sometimes but
also significantly communally, as the Ambulicus says, then you are

(13:28):
not able to reach the divine in the right way,
no matter how much ink is spilled on the subject.
Sure goes on. For the Neoplatonists, there is no need
for a new creation, no need to be redeemed from
a fall of nature, for nature itself is the body
of our salvation. The ongoing and natural expression of demioge

(13:50):
reveals the choreography of an ancient and everlasting theophony. This
is why the Amblicus insist that all theogy must be
in analogia with creating. Theogic activity was always in analogyar
cosmogonic activity, cosmogonic active cosmogonic, and this is what distinguishes
it from sorcery in Greek goetear. So that's trying to

(14:16):
say that normal magic does not take place in the
in the you know, the cosmogonic activity in sympathy with everything.
It's a different kind of thing. So it's not the
divine sympathy with the demiurgy's you know, when you're performing

(14:36):
the orgy, as he calls it, god working, you'd say
in English, I think it would be you are participating
in the divine acts of the gods, and this is
the way I this is where I see blood as well.
But when you're performing certain like lower forms of magic, divination,
maybe to find out what the lottery numbers to use,

(14:58):
you're not. You're not You're not having that same elevating
experience or with the gods. It's a different thing. He
goes on. Theoretically, any culture could be theoretic if its
rites and prayers preserve the eternal measures of creation. The
question is whether this difference between the Platonic and Christian

(15:20):
myths has significant consequences downstream i After the incarnation. It
may for Eamblicus, the theoretic rights of each sacred race
reveal the gods in modes appropriate to their respective cultures.
Neoplatonic theogy was imagined within a polytheistic and pluralistic cosmos,
the varieties of culture and geography, corresponding to the diversity

(15:44):
of theoretic societies. This was also consistent with Eamblicus's metaphysics,
where the utterly ineffable one can only be known in
the many the henophony of each culture, both veiling and
revealing its ineffable source. To privilege any one of these
anophonies over the others, to proclaim that it alone is

(16:06):
true is an ascertain that would have been treated with
contempt by theoretic neoplatonists, for such a claim betrays the
very principle of theogy, understood as cosmogonic activity rooted in
an ineffable source, one that necessarily expresses itself in multiple
forms of demiurgic generosity. Theotists would find claims of an

(16:26):
exclusive possession of truth equivalent to the deranged assertion that
the sun shines only in my backyard. So, even though
Christianity and by extension, Islam, which comes out of Christian thought,
have a direct influence from the theotists theorgy of the Theamblicus,
their insistence on the one true Gospel, one true religion

(16:50):
having an exclusive claim to the truth is incompatible with
the nature of philosophy within aistic context. So the Neoplatonists
recognized that, you know, they didn't think that Greek religion
was correct and Egyptian or Germanic or Celtic religion were heresies.

(17:15):
They just knew that the Druids and the Teutans, the Egyptians,
the Persians all had different ways of engaging with the
gods who were the same gods. And that isn't syncretism,
that isn't soft polytheism or something these modernized like crude
philosophical interpretations. That is just how people would understood it.

(17:36):
If they couldn't understand they might have sometimes recognized that
not able if they encountered a god among a foreign
people they couldn't recognize among their own gods, they might
have said, oh, this is a different god. Other times
they might have recognized it as being similar to one
of their gods and said, oh, this is it. But
what the main thing is to understand is they understood
that it is right and proper for there to be
diversity in these vocabularies for engage with the divine that

(18:01):
constitute the pre monotheistic religions. If you want to use
a term religion. It's a slight, slightly inappropriate anachronism. But
each race had its own gods, and that's proper and right.
But for any of those races to say that they
had a one true doctrine, that's incompatible with this philosophy,

(18:26):
and I think it's incompatible with general how polytheism works.
Shure goes on in theogy, the soul is called on
to imitate and to cooperate with the activity of the Demiurge.
Yet to perform this meditation, the soul must necessarily embrace dividedness, weakness,

(18:49):
and mortality. Ironically, and paradoxically, the soul's identity with the
demios is realized only through self alienation and division. Only
through our dividedness and contingency can we enter the unifying
activity of the Demiurge. It is the unique character of
the human soul that its immortality and universality are discovered

(19:12):
and expressed in a particular and mortal form. To escape mortality, therefore,
would forego our only path to immortality. Christianity expresses this
paradox through the incarnation that redeems the world and presents
a paradoxical model of losing, finding, giving, receiving that Christians

(19:33):
emulate in order to participate in the mystery of the incarnation.
Neoplatonic thea just recognizes paradox, but again they see it
as an expression of cosmogenesis and has rooted in the
essential structure of every human soul, so that the you know,
you can't have an escape from mortality. You can't have,

(19:54):
you know, this idea of the human an escape from
the human condition. As you know, transhumanists and the neo
Marxists Abel Markuza had this idea of the amiliation of
the human condition. This is wrong because the human, the
experience of being embodied as a human, is what allows

(20:18):
us to experience the divine. This is part of this
is actually a necessary route to the divine. I'll get
on there some more quotes on that later to elaborate on,
but that's important and I use this quote in twenty
twenty two when I was speaking at the Pagan Futures
event in London and trying to form a polytheist argument

(20:38):
against neognosticism because Jamblicus and certain other of the Platonists,
the Neoplatonists were opposed to gnostic doctrines which see the
world and embodiment as bad things. The whole of theag

(21:01):
presents a double aspect. One is that it is conducted
by men, which preserves our natural rank in the universe.
The other is that, being empowered by divine symbols, it
is raised up through them to be united with the
gods and is led harmoniously into their order. This can
rightly be called taking the shape of the Gods. This

(21:22):
quote and the previous one, we're seeing that the Neoplatonic
or the pagan use of theagy, unlike the Christian use
of theagy. It doesn't rely on the mystery of the
incarnation and this idea of the divine made flesh as
a way of uniting them with the divine. Instead, we
have we unite with the divine through sacrifice itself, through

(21:46):
the blood. We don't need the God to participate in
a sacrifice, self sacrifice on our behalf, and then we
vicariously experience a divine through this self sacrifice of an
embodied God. Christian theology, rather, we embody the actions of
the gods through our rights. And when I say oh,

(22:07):
I'm not just meaning because I'm not referring to myself
as a theogist or a Platonist. To be clear, I
am quite opposed to some of the neoplatonist ideas, and
most of the ones I'm opposed to the ones that
Yamlucus is opposed to too, So I'm most sympathetic to Yamblucus.
But I meant as a heathen because we share so
much in common with theogic neoplatonists. As heathens, acting as

(22:34):
intermediaries between the gods and man, diamonds revealed the rhythms
of the year through which human society contacted the gods
in ritual and sacrifice, and thus became properly placed within
the unity of the cosmos. As Plato observes, for a
city to be kept alive, its sacrifices and feasts must
fit the natural order. He says that in laws and

(22:56):
this coordination of human acts to the cosmos increases the
intelligence of men, according to Plato. Thus, Plato's homo homoiosis
fail recognized as the goal of pidea, which is form
of education, was measured by the soul's homoosis. Cosmo to

(23:18):
be assimilated to the gods or had to enter into
communion with the diamonds, who revealed them in the world.
I'll go. I've got lots more quotes from the book
on diamonds and what that means. But diamonds are the
intermediary beings from which the word demon comes. But it's
not don't think of demons, but the intermediary beings between uh,

(23:40):
the the embodied soul, humans and the gods. And they
can themselves be attached to matter, or they can be
you know, there are different the whole hierarchy of them
linking the highest gods to the terrestrial realm, just as
this medieval Christian hierarchy of h had, you know, the
hierarchy of beings going up to God existed for us

(24:04):
as Heathens. We have these these beings, many of these beings.
We don't call them diamonds. We call them all sorts
of things. They can be called elves, dwarves, vetera, lots
of different names, and they refer to the same things,
and they link us to the divine in a similar way,
also as said in this Platonic context, through the annual

(24:26):
sacrifices and feasts. Well like, for example, it's now October.
In a week or so, we're going to be celebrating
Alpha blood at Winter full If. Winter fool If symbolizes
the beginning of the Dark year, the dark half of
the year, and part of that festival involves a sacrifice
to the elves, who are the spirits of the most
noble and sended dead, the dead who have ascended to

(24:49):
a higher spiritual playing and dwell in Alpheim. That's the
same basic concept. So we, through sacrifice to the elves,
are also joy with the gods. And we know that's
true because our blood. He's said. A woman who's just
uh bothered by Christians while she's trying to conduct Alpha

(25:11):
blood during this holy time of year, says, go away,
you unlucky man, because Christians bring bad luck to sacred right,
I fear odins rough she says, I fear odins a
off the Highest God in the context of alpha blood.
Why would she fear odins rof in the context of
a blood to the elves, because the blood to the

(25:33):
elves is a way of becoming uniting with the Highest God.
Even in this context, it's the same principles. And I'm
going to continue because I realize that my audience is
largely heaven, but disproportionately heaven. I'll continue making these comparisons
to our own domanic Heathen tradition, although if you're not
a Heathen, I'm sure you can infer the relevance to

(25:55):
your own traditions as well. I'll be interested if you
have any comments in the leave in the comments your
own exact term descriptions of how these concepts might relate
to your own specific traditions, too. Appreciate learning about that
in a locative orientation, right, sure. Evil and the demonic,

(26:17):
using here in the common modern term demonic as in
demons in the Christian sense, arise only when something is
out of place. In Plato's taxonomy, the demonic was relegated
to the province of the inverted soul, turned upside down
and a trope, and alienated from the whole. So the

(26:39):
very notion of good and evil in this context is
all about being in your right place. Something is only
evil in relation to other things. So by when something
isn't in the proper, divinely ordained place, that is what
makes it evil. It's when something is improper to the
divine order. That's what evil is, and that's what I

(27:00):
Heathen interpreted. That's what makes why is the una bad?
Because they are opposed to the gods. The gods are
opposed to the jutnat. But that's good. This is the
version of Everything has to be in its proper place,
and the chaos represented by primordial the primordial genunga gap
and the beings emerging from it were put into order

(27:21):
by the gods. Whereas I'm quoting Shore again. Whereas traditional
Platonic pidea had traced and assent to the gods through
a deepening assimilation to cosmic orders, Platinus's utopian orientation tended
to devalue the cosmos as a divine revelation. This in

(27:42):
turn denied the value of religious rituals tied to the
rhythms of the sensible word. The new metaphysics undercut the
traditional basis of pidea, for it transformed the platonic platonic homeosis,
theo measure by the soul's assimilation to the cosmic gods,
into a homeosis heoto with the self understood as the

(28:09):
divine noose. The soul's identification with the cosmos, therefore was
no longer necessary or desirable, for the cosmos had been
altogether short circuited. It was something to escape from, not
assimilate oneself to Consequently, Porphyry conceived of salvation as the
soul's permanent escape from the cosmos quote never again defined itself,

(28:34):
held and polluted by the contagion of the world. In
this he abandoned the Platonic doctrine of rebirth. Yet his
unorthodoxy with respect to traditional Platonism were consistent with its
gnostra sized form. For where the cosmos and not the soul,
carried the burden of the demonic, Porphyry maintained that permanent

(28:56):
escape was possible only for the philosopher, not for the
common man, and this again exemplifies the social as well
as ontological oppositions tied to the doctrine of the undescended soul.
Those incapable of the philosophic escape, says Porphyry, performed theoretic
rights to purify their irrational elements. But such souls were

(29:18):
never free, So there's this departure from the original. Plato
believed in a kind of reincarnation, just like Reheathens do,
just like the Celts did, just like the Egyptians did,
Many and the Arians of India. All these people believed
in this reincarnation doctrine. But there does seem to be

(29:39):
a departure from that, and even beginning as early as Platinus,
and poor Furi has some heretical what I consider heretical beliefs,
and he's saying that, you know this theogy. Some of
the Platonists before Yambucus are saying there because theogy existed
long before Jamblicus. It's an ancient it's in the county
and oracles. But for them often theater is just away,

(30:02):
like an early preliminary stage of purifying the soul, before
you completely abandon the rights altogether, and like the rights
are then seen as something crude that you shouldn't do.
You evolve beyond the need for the traditional religion of Greece,
and that is actually heretical for sure. But the Amlicus

(30:27):
s opposed this, and as I can say, it's I
think the Gnostics. Although Thinus was against the Gnostics, the
Neoplatonists in general were against the Gnostics. Is also true
paradoxically to say that there was an influence of Gnostic
thought on thinkers within the Platonic academy, and Gnosticism, if

(30:48):
you're not aware, is an originally probably Jewish. And then
very soon after Christian philosophy, which sees the like the soul,
as something that has been trapped here on this in
this evil terrestrial realm, and must be set free. Whereas
that is not at all a heathen or a pagan

(31:10):
polytheist view, and it's not the view of the Amblicus either. So,
but some of the Platonists take a view something like that,
not that they were opposed to the Gnostics, but they
accepted some ideas of like the soul as being descended,
hasn't come down and having to ascend again to get away,

(31:32):
which is hard to argue that doesn't have some influence
from the Gnostics. So the Amblicus takes a different view altogether.
Quoting Sure Theamblicus, like Plato, placed the demonic within the
embodied soul, the only chaos untamed by the demioge the
embodied soul. It represents that primordial chaos in a way.

(31:55):
Yet in Iamblucus's Platonism, the purpose of this alienation was
made clearer. While Plato's demiurge gave to each soul a
spark of himself according to the Timaeus, the Ambulicus understood
this to mean that each soul had the responsibility to
perform its own demiogi, that is to say, its own theagy.
The task for every soul was to partake in divine

(32:18):
mimesis by creating a cosmos out of the initial chaos
of its embodiment. Therefore, the demonic condition of the embodied
soul was a felix culpa, without which the soul could
not participate in cosmogenesis, including its own creation and salvation.

(32:40):
So yeah, there is a negative aspect in the Amblican
perspective of the embodied soul, that or the domonic element here,
confusing mixture of times, because demonic here is the negative
Christian term, not the diamonis of Greek polytheism, which doesn't
necessarily have a negative term, but it can if the

(33:02):
process of being embodied in the on in this material
realm can be can prevent one from participating in the cosmogenesis,
but it doesn't necessarily do that. But yeah, there's a
confusion in the process of being of the soul being embodied. Now.
Of course, this is where it gets harder for a

(33:22):
Germanic even to see the relevance, perhaps because the soul
body distinction is actually quite hard to see anywhere in
the world outside before Playton's thought, really, of course, they
had many of the concepts we or in many religions
of the soul and this like part that the journey

(33:44):
of the of the soul after death, if you will,
and then the reincarnation in the body. Had all these beliefs,
but we can only really talk about those beliefs, and
by we, I'm talking about all modern people, whether you're secular, Christian,
pagan whatever, atheist you're we inherited from Western philosophical tradition
of Greek paganism and Christianity, a language of describing the

(34:07):
soul and its embodiment and it's reincarnation or its or
it's passing on to heaven or Hell or whatever you like,
as something with the soul body dichotomy and the distinction.
And actually that's not really described explicitly in most pre
Christian context. It's really like the same thing, like you
are the you are you, and I can't really go

(34:31):
into that. I've tried to do it before. It's actually
quite complicated for our for us to understand because we
don't really lack we don't really have the vocabulary to
describe it without this soul body distinction. It's like, actually,
you are your you, and even when you reincarnate, it's
like there's a constant sameness which doesn't correlate with like

(34:52):
body soul, unembodied soul, embody. Again, it's so it's hard
to describe. But anyway, so this is interesting. Anyway, this
is a bit unique to Yamblicus going on. These two
doctrines of an upside down world and an understanded soul
were rejected by Iamblicus, who warned Porphyry that such teachings

(35:12):
would destroy their entire way of life, saying and quoting Theamblicus,
this doctrine spells the ruin of all holy ritual and
theotic communion between gods and men, since it places the
presence of superior beings outside this earth. For it amounts
to saying that the divine is at present, so that

(35:34):
the divine is at a distance from the earth and
cannot mingle with men, and that this lower region is
a desert without gods. So he's warning Porphyary, his former teacher,
that these doctrines gnostic inspired actually are a path to
a kind of atheism, and they are a kind of
path to a disenchantment of the world, which is what

(35:56):
we experience now. I believe where people don't believe the
gods are present in the world, and they are. The
theorist's hidest good was not realized by escaping from materiality,
right sure, but by embracing matter and multiplicity in a
demiurgic way. In this Yamblicus virtually reversed the symbolic language

(36:21):
of his age. Apotheosis in theagy could no longer be
imagined as the ascent of the soul, the well known
Plutinian metaphor without a corresponding descent and demiurgi. The pivot
on which the metaphor turned was Yambucus's understanding of the
soul's relation to matter, and his solution to this question

(36:44):
is critical for understanding the central role he gives to theurgy. Indeed,
in the view of Yamblicus and other hieratic Neoplatonists, embodied
souls were able to attain salvation only through the theurgic
use of matter. And of course I agree, you cannot

(37:08):
be a polytheist's whether heathen or otherwise, without using matter
to perform the rights to plicate the gods. That's crucial
where some you know, Yamber clean Platonist wouldn't actually say
it was possible for you to plicate a god because
the gods you aren't actually don't require anything from us.

(37:33):
According to their orthodoxy of Platonist doctrine, the rights are
essential for man. The only thing that differs therefore, in
front between the this neoplatonists Theurgic orthodoxy, and the orthodoxy
of conventional polytheism is that ritual or blood in the

(37:58):
traditional religion was a way for to plicate the gods,
and therefore men would benefit from it, whereas in the
Neoplatonists version only the man can benefit. The god cannot
be doesn't benefit, It isn't for their benefit, But the

(38:18):
actual action remains the same, and the theological justification is
pretty much the same. The chronology of the Timaeus right
sure simply portrayed ontological grades of being simultaneously present in
the corporeal world. The separation of corporeality from its principles

(38:41):
was an impossibility that could only occur in abstraction, not
in actuality. In other words, at the moment the demiurg exists,
the entire corporeal world exists, and in every sense there
was no spatial or temporal separation between the forms and
their sensible expression. The Timaeus is Plato's principal work of metaphysics,

(39:11):
very important for neoplatonists, and sort of having outlined theaty itself,
I've now collected some quotes from the book on the
subject of fate and matter. Fate is so important for
me as a Heathen weird we call it weird. It
was known in Old nurses. Earth the earth or weird

(39:35):
is just such an important force in Germanic paganism that
it actually goes on being such in the medieval Christian
Germanic world for some time after conversion, because you know
the Christian context where it says, you know, everything is
subject of fate, even some implying even that God our way,

(40:00):
that the Christian God is somehow, you know, not as
powerful as fate, which is heretical in the Christian context actually,
but this has comes from an earlier belief system. And
of course the Greeks also believed in fate, and it's
extremely important. Sometimes mamen hymomena, and my Greek isn't very good.

(40:24):
Hamomiene can be used or to describe fate. So I
quote sure for the Amblicants. For Theiamblicus, providence, planoia and
fate myrni were functional terms describing the soul's experience of
one divine law, salvific for those who obeyed and embodied it,

(40:46):
oppressive to those who resisted it. Fate only ruled those
whose attention had been given over to generated things, not
those who participated in their guiding principle. The Amblicus continued
to be brief. The movements of fate around the world
may be likened to immaterial and noetic activities and revolutions,

(41:08):
and the order of fate resembles this intelligible and pristine order.
Secondary powers in cosmic gods are joined with primary causes
hypercosmic gods and the multitude in generation, and thus all
things under fate are joined with divide, with undivided essence,

(41:32):
and with providence as a guiding principle. In accord with
this same essence, then fate is interwoven with providence, and
in reality, fate is Providence is established from it and
around it. Saw says this being the case, the principle

(41:52):
of human actions moves in concert with both these principles
of the cosmos. Fate and providence. But there is also
a principle of action liberal rated from nature and free
from the movement of the cosmos. On account of this,
it is not contained in the motion of the world.
Thus it is not introduced from nature nor from any motion,
but is pre established as more ancient, not having been

(42:14):
derived from anything. Wherefore, since the soul is allotted certain
parts from all the parts and the elements of the cosmos,
and uses these, it is contained in the order of fate,
takes its place in this order, fulfills its conditions, and
makes proper use of it. And to the degree that
the soul combines in itself pure reason, self substantiated, and

(42:36):
self moved, acting from itself and perfect, it is liberated
from all external things. But to the degree that the
soul extends into different modes of life, falls into generation
and identifies with the body, it is sewn into the
order of the world. And here is also referencing Stubbian emetica.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
So this is.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Interesting because it provides a potential framework for understanding the
limits of weird of fate. Because I mean, even struggle
with this sometimes because the one people want to ask,
and even like all spiritual people will say you know
how much is our fate set and how much can

(43:20):
we decide? And there are clear examples, like in Germanic
context where it says fate is all powerful and everything
is decided long before you're born. The Norns weave fate,
just as they have the moirai in Greek weaving fate.
It's very similar to the Nords, obviously of the same
Indo European origin, these women who weave fate. But at

(43:41):
the same time there are men, especially heroes, who are
able to change their fate or work against certain forces,
and there are also gods who can influence these things.
So this provides an idea for like how some people
are ruled by fate and some people aren't. According to
this fate ruled only those whose attention have been given

(44:02):
over to generated things, not those who participated in the
guiding principle. So it's like by engaging with the divine,
the possibility for changing weird, changing your fate arises. Interesting
to consider now some quotes on the nature of the divine.

(44:33):
Sure writes, since it was necessary that earthly things not
be deprived of participation in the divine, the earth received
a certain divine portion capable of receiving the gods. The
theatic art, Therefore, recognizing this principle in general, and having
discovered the proper receptacles in particular as being appropriate to
each one of the gods, often brings together stones, herbs, animals, aromatics,

(44:58):
and other sacred, perfect and dear form objects of a
similar kind than from all of these. It produces a
perfect and pure receptacle. That's very interesting because it talks
this is a right. It brings out the possibility for
some aspects of matter to be more closer to divine

(45:20):
than others Yamblcus quoted here. Therefore, whether it is certain
animals or plants, or any of the other things on
earth governed by superior beings, they simultaneously share in their
inspective care and procure for us an indivisible communion with
the gods. As from Demysterius, through the appropriate use of

(45:43):
the God's sunthe mata in nature, the soul could awaken
in itself the power of their corresponding symbols. This realigned
the soul with the manifesting energies of a deity and
freed it from servitude to the diamonds who watch over
its physical expression. So this allows this method so theatic

(46:03):
methods and engaging with special kinds of matter allows one
to use the diamonic energies therein to unite with the gods.
Very interesting. Shaw also says, by entering into the community
of the gods as one of its bodies of light,

(46:23):
the embodied soul was no longer alienated by matter nor
passionately drawn to it. You no longer get trapped with
by matter. That means embodiment was transformed from the psychic
chaos of suffering into a cosmos and adornment of the divine.
The lapse of time in the Temaeus between material chaos
and cosmos, though only a necessity of discourse when speaking

(46:45):
of the world soul, was an accurate description of the
experience of the embodied soul on its path path to demiurgi.
In theogy, the soul gradually transformed the chaos of its
embodied experience into the perfect measures of the cosmos. Sure
goes on. The rank of a divinity was indicated by

(47:06):
its relation to and command over matter. Matter was the
index that measured the degrees of divinity, and for particular souls,
their relation to matter also determined the kind of theorgy
they were to practice. He also explains that the parts
of the gods and man, there's three different parts, and

(47:31):
they correspond differently in man and gods. That distinguishes man
and gods. These three parts are Usia, dunamis, and andagea.
In the gods, usia the god's high existence is highest, transcendent,
and perfect. In humans, usia the existence of souls is lowest, deficient,
and imperfect. In the gods dunamis, the gods have the

(47:53):
power to do all things at once, uniformly and in
an instant according to the Amblicus, whereas human souls do
not have the power to do all things, neither at
one time, nor in an instant, nor uniformly. And finally,
the gods energear allows them to generate and govern all
things without inclining to them, whereas human in a gear,
the souls have the nature to incline and turn towards

(48:16):
what they generate and govern. This is more specific to
Platonists ideas. Now, sure right, the manifestation of a soul
as body was itself an activity of the soul, and
therefore the kind of body that a soul animated indicated
its class. These classes, Jamblicus says, do not change. As

(48:40):
lowest of divine beings, the human soul had an unstable
and mortal vehicle that alienated from it from its own divinity.
In embodiment, the soul literally became other to itself. So
that you know, this other, not this soul body dichotomy
is not really compatible with Heathenry. This is one part
of theagy we can't take over because it's just it's

(49:02):
not there. And also, despite the Amblicaus opposing the gnostic view,
you can see here that there is something here within
it where like the way that the soul is alienated
from divinity by being embodied is just not really part
of traditional polytheism. But it's an interesting concept all the same,

(49:28):
and it's certainly influential on Christianity and other extent metaphysical
doctrines of today. Those of you who saw my video
on sacred dreaming. Although I'm interested in dreams and how
they help us to learn divine truths, even engage with
the gods perhaps in some cases, or at least with

(49:49):
the dead, and with the secrets of the underworld. Well,
dreams are addressed here too. So I've collected some quotes
from the book on that subject. From the mysterious Becus writes,
since the soul possesses a double life, the one with
the body and the other separate from all body. When
we are awake, for the most part, in our ordinary life,

(50:10):
we make use of the life in common with the body,
except when we are somehow entirely free from it by
intuiting and conceiving and pure thought. But in sleep we
are completely liberated, freed as it were, from certain bonds
closely held on us, and we employ a life separated
from generation at this time. Therefore, whether intellectual or divine

(50:30):
are the same, or each one exists with its own characteristic,
this kind of life is awakened in us and acts
according to its nature. So that can explain why dreams
allow us to experience things we can't experience while conscious awake,
short writes. Yambucus added that since sleep liberated the soul

(50:50):
from the body, the presence of the gods was clearer
and sharper in dreams than when awake. Quote. For the
act of divine inspiration is not human, nor does all
its authoritative power rest in human members or action. But
these are otherwise disposed, and the God uses them as
his instruments. So that doesn't just refer to dreams, but

(51:14):
of divine inspiration, what we would call, perhaps in a
Heathen tradition or or woth, when the God provides that
the highest God provides, it's divine frenzy, that is the
influence of the God when he uses one as an instrument.
Quoting the Ambulicus in demasteris intellectual. Intellectual understanding does not

(51:38):
connect theatists with divine beings, for what would prevent those
who philosophize theoretically from having theatic union with the gods.
But this is not true. Rather, it is the perfect
accomplishment of ineffable acts, religiously performed and beyond all understanding.
And it is the power of ineffable symbols, comprehended by

(51:59):
the gods alone that establishes theological union. Thus, we don't
perform these acts intellectually, for then their energy would be
intellectual and depend on us, which is not at all true.
In fact, these very symbols by themselves perform their own work,
and the ineffable power of the gods with which these
symbols are charged itself recognizes by itself, its own images.

(52:24):
It is not awakened to this by our thinking. I
love that quote, and it's summarized quite succinctly by Julius Evela.
I can't remember which work, and I'm going to paraphrase,
but he says spirituality is not the thoughts and philosophies,
it is actions. It is the actions that define spirituality.

(52:47):
And that is sub potential for especially to the intellectually gifted,
who are inclined to fall into a sort of academicizing
tendency of theology and the divine, you know, as a
way of using their natural God given gifts. But it
can easily sort of actually paradoxically ironically, sort of separate

(53:13):
them from the divine, because I know people like this
who they spend so much time trying to theorize about
the gods that they can't actually engage with them. They
just can't have divine experiences, and it leads them to
flip flop all over the place because they can't remain
steadfast on a spiritual path, which is what you need
to do if you want to really engage with the divine.

(53:34):
You can't flip flop. You need to commit yourself to
something and do it and practice it. Practice the tradition
as it's supposed to be practiced, and not flip flop
between different traditions or spend all your time agonizing over
theology or philosophy, although philosophy is a route to help
one unite with the divine, have to know the balance,

(54:01):
and this theosy is that very well balanced. In my opinion,
is perfectly balanced because it's safe here. These symbols and
this matter, and this physical matter are themselves charged with
this divine power and awaken and by engaging with them
through ritual, we are awakened to the divine. That's what
allows you to perceive the divine in this world. You

(54:24):
need to perform these rituals in order to have this ability.
What closes people off in the divine, the disenchantment of
the world is caused by the lack of ritual. By
performing rituals, you will learn again to perceive the gods
into mysterious. The Emblica says the time one spends in

(54:46):
prayer nourishes the intuitive mind and greatly enlarges the soul's
receptacles for the gods. In other words, it allows you
to the funct just as like you know, if you
work a muscle at the gym, you keep working it,
that muscle will work better. You know, you keep working
the bicep, you'll be able to lift heavier things. You

(55:08):
keep work through prayer, you keep nourishing the soul. As
he using this term soul to the soul's ability to
perceive the gods, and the gods will be perceived. It's
very simple the problem of the soul. I mean for
us Heathens. This is where I keep saying, It's like
it gets difficult for us because we can't really talk

(55:29):
about the soul in the same way. Back in twenty seventeen,
I made a video on the trip its soul, and
I pointed out how the soul conceived of being a
composite of multiple parts is something that existed in Platonic philosophy,
and that the Platonist took it from earlier Greek thought

(55:51):
and also existed in Vadanta, and is clearly present in
the Germanic Heathen worldview too. I in twenty seventeen theorized
that this tripo artite soul division was perhaps something of
Indo European origin. I don't think. I think I might
have been going a bit too far now to say
that that was a bit, probably a bit too liberal

(56:11):
and interpretation. But certainly the idea of the self rather
than soul, let's not use the load of terms so
as being something composed of multiple spiritual elements. I believe
that is ancient in Indo European because it's present in
all the derivative religions that we know of, and certainly
therefore we can see the Platonic idea of the tripartite

(56:33):
soul as something derived from an earlier Indo European belief system,
just as the as Vedanta has it and we Heathens
have it too. From this matter, I think it's worth
talking to you all about the elements of the tripartite
soul as expressed in the Amblakian theater. As explained by
Gregor Yshaw. Share writes that according to the Amblicus, Plato

(56:57):
spoke of the soul ambivalently, sometimes defining it as essentially
tripartite and sometimes as an undivided essence of life, having
many powers and properties in one identity. Although Plato's language varied,
Theambulicus believed that Plato understood the soul to be a
simple unity with three powers, and the discrepancy with Aristotle

(57:21):
on the sissy was melismantic. Platinus retained a middle Platonic
conception of matter as evil. He understood the dualism experienced
by the soul to be caused by matter. Once cleansed
of material accretions, the soul immediately realized it divinity. For Platinus,
the soul's division was not essential, but accidental, caused by

(57:45):
matter and the dualistic cosmos. But for Theambucus, the soul's
dividedness was integral to its essence. It could never grasp
the undividedness through which it participated in the divine. Therefore,
the Ambulicus shifted Platonic steriology that's a salvagic dotrine, from
an intellectual to a ritual aschesis when the embodied soul

(58:08):
or sorry what the embodied soul could never know, it
could nevertheless perform in conjunction with the gods as discursive. However,
the mind remained an antios, barred from union with the gods.
Interesting how that idea of the soul develops. I'm certainly

(58:29):
against platinus'sc iety. Responding to poor Fernie's criticism that man's
prayers were impure and unfit to be offered to the
divine news, Yamblucus retorts not at all, for it is
due to this very fact, because we are far inferior
to the gods in power, purity, and everything else, that

(58:51):
it is, of all things most critical that we do
pray to them, to the utmost, For the awareness of
our own nothingness, when we compare ourselves to the gods,
makes us turn spontaneously to prayer, and from our supplication
in a short time we are led up to that
one to whom we pray, and from our continual intercourse

(59:13):
with it we obtain a likeness to it, And from
imperfection we are gradually embraced by divine perfection. So prayer
ennobles the soul. I think many doctrines hold this to
be true today, But Saul says, Theamblicus explicitly rejected the
idea that the soul achieves an absolute union with the divine.

(59:37):
In the Danama, he contrasted the view of the ancients
by ancient theatists who denied absolute unification, with the view
of Numinius, and by implication Platinus, who affirmed it. Theamblicus says,
Numinius appears to maintain that there is in unification and
identity without distinction of the soul with its principles, but

(59:58):
the ancients maintain that the soul is united while remaining
distinct as an essence. Newminius compares it to a resolution,
but the ancients to an association. And while the former
use the terms unification with no distinction of parts, the
latter say it is a unification with distinction of parts.

(01:00:19):
This forms part of Yamblucus's explanation of the rewards given
to the purified soul after death. It is Germaine because
theogy like death separated the soul from its embodied identity
and caused it to experience post mortem purifications and rewards
after life. Therefore, Yambluicus's description of liberated souls in the

(01:00:41):
Dianama concurs with his description of theogic souls in the Demsterius.
Like Theotists, divinized souls after death share in the creation
and preservation of the cosmos, contrasting the more Theotic view
of the ancients with the Platonists. Yamblicus says, according to
the Ancients, the souls freed from generation co administer the

(01:01:02):
cosmos with the gods, but according to the Platonists, they
contemplate their divine hierarchy. And in the same way, according
to the Ancients, liberated souls create the cosmos together with
the angels, but according to the Platonists, they accompany them
in the circular journey. So there's an important distinction. I

(01:01:23):
mean this idea of from Platonism, of the idea that
many new ages have this expression like we are you know,
the embodied soul is the universe experiencing itself, or and
perhaps in a platon A sense it would be saying,
you know, you can become one with everything, you know,

(01:01:45):
as some Buddhist say stuff like that as well, like
we make me one with everything. But actually Ambercaus wants
it to be known that there's an important distinction between
what he calls the ancients, meaning earlier theorists, probably like Chaldeans,
and contemporary Platonists of his time, who the contemporary platon
is talking about actually becoming one with the one with

(01:02:07):
the everything, whereas the ampler says that's not really what's happening.
You're only participating with the gods in divine you know,
like demiourgey, like the participation in the divine acts through rites,
but and and thatfore you're joined with them, but you're
not them, you're not the you're not actually becoming them.

(01:02:32):
You still have a distinction. Interesting to note because sometimes
people like to use like Platonists as this broad very raw,
you know, like this idea that it's all one unified religion,
and it just I mean, all religions have, you know,
distinct factions within them, but I mean Platonists spend the

(01:02:56):
platon has always spend most of their time criticizing each
other and have actually highly divergent beliefs, highly divergent, and
so it's very important to distinguish those when we're talking
about Platonists and what Platonists believe. There's a good quote
on Eros and the one of the soul, the embodiments
of the soul, and the tension caused by its separation

(01:03:18):
from divinity. Rights sure was not a fall or an error,
but the sene carnon to simulate stimulate the circulation of eros,
for only in the embodied soul, in its self alienation
and inversion could the divine genuinely experience separation and consequently
an Eros for itself. In the Timaeus, Plato says that

(01:03:42):
without the descent of souls into mortal bodies, the universe
would remain incomplete. Thus theaty saved the soul and the cosmos,
for without the embodiment of the soul and its inversion,
the divine could never yearn for itself Eros desire. That's
desire would never arise as the first born God, and

(01:04:03):
the cosmos would never come to exist. So the theorist
invoked the Eros of this stream to awaken the antiros
hidden in his soul. In the hieratic moment of joining
the divine to the divine, the theorist himself became a creator,
a demysh Yet it was only by virtue of his

(01:04:26):
embodiment and alienation from the gods that he was able
to fulfill this task. Only because he is separate from
the gods and reiterating something other than the gods and
an insould, you know, an insold body, that he's able
to reunite and complete this chain. In the theatic act

(01:04:50):
of an embodied soul, Eros was allowed to join itself
and regenerate the bond that unites the cosmos. That is
so interesting. This is basically like what new ages say
the universe is like life is universe experiencing itself. Man.
That's that's literally an ancient doctrine and it's found. I've
mentioned this before. It's found in many different doctors. Actually,

(01:05:11):
it's found in Indian thought, in Buddhist thought, it's found
in you know, it's found. It's mentioned it specifically in
the context of a shave Shavi eyed doctrine in India,
and of among Jews they have something similar in their
mystical doctrine of Kabbalah. So this is something that keeps
popping up again and again and other. It's like you

(01:05:31):
can call it cringe new age and universalism, but it
does something. It does have ancient presidents, and it explains
a lot an idea that I mean, why does that?
Why would a god need immortal? Why would God? Why
would God to create mortals? Why would why is the
soul embodied? Or why is there this?

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Why exists there this race on earth that is capable
of worshiping the divine and is inclined to do so.
That requires an explanation. And this is it. This is
a good one. I mean this, you know, it's like
completing the chain. That this, like the desire of the
divine for the divine, is completed through the embodied soul

(01:06:13):
worshiping the divine through the ancient rituals of their respective racist.
That's beautiful, isn't it. Earlier I said I would talk
a bit more about diamonds, about the diamond that these
these strange intermediary beings that are equivalent to the gin
in Islam, or the elves in Germanic Heathenry, and to

(01:06:36):
other beings vaguely equivalent. There's always like you know, never
quite matching equivalents between traditions, but you get the idea.
But they always have something that Tantra has equivalent beings
of this as well. And it's good to understand what's
meant because the accusation of demon worship is thrown a

(01:06:57):
lot around. At Pagans, we worshiped demons, and at the
time the Platonic Academy of like people like Emperor Julian
there he was raised Christian before, so he reverted back
to the true faith, and now he was having to
deal with these accusations. You worship demons, you worship demons,
and I get you know, there are many people who

(01:07:19):
accuse me of worshiping demons as well. So I think
there's some confusion on the matter, and it's good to
look at the Platonic idea of what demon worship actually
means and what the defense for it is. So in
Sean writes that in on the Abstinence of animal food Vegetarianism,

(01:07:41):
poor Fury had argued that the gods worshiped in blood
sacrifices were not gods at all, but diamonds, counterfeiting as gods.
That diamonds were the immediate objects of worship was a
point with which Yambluchers agreed, for it followed the hierarchical
law that man must appro the gods through the mediation

(01:08:02):
of diamonds. However, Yambucus disagreed with Porfuri's description of these entities.
While both acknowledge that diamonds were invisible beings with pneumatic bodies,
Porfuri contended that their bodies were perishable and nourished by
the vapors of blood sacrifice. So Porfurri is saying, these

(01:08:23):
are like bad monsters who are tricking you into worshiping
them and thinking that they're gods and that they're only
sustained by the actual blood sacrifices you give them, and
if we stop giving them blood sacrifices, they'll cease to
exist like Peter Pan. And that's actually pretty much the
same line that the early medieval Church takes against paganisms,

(01:08:46):
saying you're worshiping demons and they're sustained by your blood sacrifices.
But Yamblca's categorically denied it. So here's a quote from h.
De Mysterious. For although dimunists possess a kind of body
which some believe is knowing by sacrifices, this body is unchangeable, impassive, luminous,
and without needs, so that nothing flows from it, and

(01:09:08):
in addition, it does not need anything outside to flow
into it. Schaw says as a class, diamonds were ontologically
superior to man and reveal the invisible powers of the gods,
quoting Theamblicus, they bring into manifest activity the invisible good
of the gods, reveal what is ineffable in them, shape

(01:09:30):
what is formless into forms, and render what is beyond
all measure into visible ratios. In short, says sure diamonds
were agents of the demierge in his cosmogonic activity. These
and otherwise they are okay, fine diamonds are more connected
to matter than the gods, Yes they are. The elves

(01:09:55):
are more connected to matter than the gods, you can say,
But that does not mean that in worshiping them one
is trapped in a lower realm of matter and alienated
from the gods. Far from it, Because in the hierarchy
the gods, the elves are higher than man, so they
are a link to the gods, not an obstacle. These

(01:10:18):
mediating classes complete the universal bond between gods and souls,
rights the ambulicus in demysterious. They affect an indissoluble connection
between them, and they bind together one continuum, extending from
the highest to the lowest. They make the communion of
universal beings indivisible and provide an excellent blend and proportionate

(01:10:41):
mixing for all. They allow the procession to pass from
more excellent to inferior natures, and they equally facilitate the
ascent from inferior to superior natures. They insert order and
measures of the communication descending from more excellent natures. They
allow for its reception into imperfect beings, and they make

(01:11:02):
all things mutually agreeable and in harmony with each other,
receiving from on high from the Gods the causes of
all these things. Here we have sure talked about Porphary's
opposition to this. Porphyary challenged this view and asked how
theatis can invoke subterranean and terrestrial deities if the gods

(01:11:23):
dwell only in the heavens, Repeating Thal's well known dictum,
Yambucus replied, to begin with, it is not true that
the gods dwell only in heaven, For all things are
full of the gods. Each god's authority was allotted to
a different region of the cosmos heaven, earth, sacred cities,
sacred places, or sacred growths or statues. This is what

(01:11:45):
we as evens believe too. Every god right shaw manifested
itself through its attendant diamonds, who were in sum sumpathair
with animate life, while the god remained entirely independent. Theatic
apatheosis was not a flight to the gods. As human

(01:12:08):
the soul remained anatropic embedded in the natural cosmos and
human society. But to the degree that the soul embodied
the divine measures of the gods. It sustained a direct
connection with them. The gods, the Amblica says, were everywhere,
but they could be received only by a vehicle that

(01:12:28):
had been properly prepared. Thus, speaking for all theatists, Yamblicus says,
let us not disdain to say this also, that we
often have occasion to perform rituals for the sake of
genuine bodily needs to the gods who oversee the body,
and to their good damurnas. The reverence paid by Theatists

(01:12:50):
to the gods that ruled over physical nature was an
expression of their confidence in philia. This comprehensive force extended
for the unity of the gods to the divisions of
the sensible world. But to experience filia, the soul had
to know the grade of the cosmos to which it
was attached, so that it could honor its tooth, thillary
gods and diamonds. So we'll talk a bit more about

(01:13:14):
this as well, like what type of person are you
and what type of soul have you got, and how
that's relevant, because that's covered in the book. But I
found this great because a lot of heathen ritual a
lot of polytheistic ritual. Traditional ritual actually involve asking the
gods to help you overcome. You know, if your child
gets sick, you've got a sick child, and you ask
the gods to help you get rid of that sickness.

(01:13:35):
That is is that you know you're attaching. And you
could argue this is a diamond. You're asking a diamond
of the earth trapped in matter to alter conditions of
matter for purely material gain. Well, the gods are in
everything as a dictum and states the gods are in
matter too, or rather matter is contained within the body

(01:14:00):
of the gods, which is non material because matter is
inferior to the gods, and the diamonds that are attached
to matter link in the embodied soul with the gods,
and asking the gods to help with material conditions through

(01:14:20):
sacrificing to them is not impiety at all, even that
unites you with the gods. And of course the conventional
Germanic Heathen religion is about doing this kind of thing,
like asking for help with things asking. Basically the Germanic
religion is about asking for help from the gods. That
is central to it. I explain in my course starting
Heathenry if you want to learn how to practice Germanic religion,

(01:14:41):
that it is central to be asking for help from
the gods for verious things and giving offerings in return.
And there are many philosophical religious schools that would say
this kind of thing is demonic, demon worshiping and materialistic
even and that you're just focusing on like the material
concerns of the body or whatever needs. But even those

(01:15:01):
link you with the divine according to the Ambulicus. So
what type of person determines How does the type of
person you are determine the type of worship that's proper
to you? Because this is not egalitarian religious tradition. This
is a hierarchical one. It's not saying everyone has to
do the same rituals. Quite reverse. Different types of people

(01:15:21):
are predisposed to different types of religious actions through different
sorts of things right for them sure rights. Therefore, since
these distinctions have been made, what follows should be most obvious?
Souls governed by the nature of the universe, leading lives
according to their own personal nature and using the powers
of nature, should perform their worship in a manner adapted

(01:15:43):
to nature and to the corporeal things moved by nature.
In their worship, they should employ places, climates, matter and
the powers of matter, bodies and the characteristics and qualities,
movements and what follows, movements and changes to the things
in generation, along with other things associated with these in
their acts of reference to the gods, and especially in

(01:16:05):
the part that pertains to performing sacrifice. Going on. Other
souls living according to the noose alone and the life
of the noose and liberated from the bonds of nature,
should concern themselves in all parts of theagy with the
intellectual and incorporeal law of the hieratic art. And going on,

(01:16:25):
Yet other souls the media between these should labor along
different paths of holiness according to the differences of their
intermediate position, either by participating in both modes of ritual
worship for the news and the body, or by separating
themselves from one mode, or by accepting both of these
as foundation for more honorable things, for without them, the

(01:16:48):
transcendent goods would never be reached. And that's referencing to mysterious.
So you know, there's basically three types. That's the intermediate
who do like them material form of worship, and then
these other souls who it's just they live entirely in
the news, these ascended masters people, and they only they

(01:17:08):
don't need them. So you've got this hierarchy, and it
sort of does reflect some of the things his former
master Porphyry taught that in that sense, because there's a
kind of like a view of the material rituals is
being inferior to a pure news poor understanding of the news.
For more, the Amblician understanding of the hierarchy of gods

(01:17:30):
and worship shure rights. According to the art of the priests,
it is necessary to begin sacrificial rights from the material
god's sacred rights from the material gods, for the assent
to the immaterial gods will not otherwise take place. The
material gods therefore, are in communion with matter inasmuch as
they preside over it. Hence they rule over material phenomena.

(01:17:56):
Quoting Iamblicus. If anyone wishes to worship these gods theogically,
that is to say, in the manner in which they
naturally exist and have been allotted their rule, they ought
to render to them a material form of worship. For
in this way we may be led into complete familiarity
with all these gods, and in worship we offer what

(01:18:16):
is appropriately related to them in the sacrifices. Therefore dead
bodies and things deprived of life, deprived of life, the
blood of animals, the consumption of victims, their diverse changes
and destruction, and in short, the breakdown of the matter
offered to the gods is fitting not for the gods themselves,
but with respect to the matter over which they preside.

(01:18:38):
For although the gods are pre eminently separate from matter,
they are nevertheless present to it. And although they contain
matter by virtue of an immaterial power, they coexist with it.
Shure goes on, the souls assent to the noetic Father
followed an unbroken continuum, and any attempt to worship the

(01:18:58):
Father directly and without intermisies was bound to fail. Yamblicus
explains that for people not yet liberated from the fate
of the material world and the communion tied up with bodies,
unless a corresponding sort of worship is offered, they will
utterly fail to attain immaterial or material blessings. He says

(01:19:19):
that in Demisterius, I suppose Christians did have something like
this hierarchic chain, especially in medieval times medieval Catholicism, people
were much more likely to pray to saints and angels
and modern day Christians and this hierarchic. This this is,
according to Yamblakian doctrine, would be a much better chain
to the highest God. You know. And just like we

(01:19:40):
heavens pray to ancestors and elves rather than always directly
to the gods. We pray to even spirits of the land,
spirits of rivers and things like that. And these link
us to the divine. They make our what would say
in a purely potonic from our soul, but I would
I would just say the cell the self becomes more

(01:20:02):
open to the divine through these activities. In an explanation
of Augury, Shaw says the ambles and Augury, of course,
is the reading of the flights of birds, which Germanic
Heathens and Roman pagans used to use to determine the future,
and also the will of the gods. In the explanation

(01:20:25):
of Augury, Elambicus makes the heratic and cosmogonic connection even
more explicit. He says that the gods use the cosmogonic
power of diamonds to reveal their will through natural signs,
quoting from the mysterious. The gods produce signs by means
of nature, which serves them in the work of generation,

(01:20:48):
nature as a whole and individual nature specifically, or by
means of the generative Daimurnes, who presiding over the elements
of the cosmos, particular bodies, animals and everything in the world,
easily produce the phenomena in whatever the way seems good
to the gods. They reveal the intentions of the gods symbolically.

(01:21:10):
So this is exactly what we do as evens for blood.
We watch after performing the rituals, we watch the behavior
of animals to ascertain the whether the gods considered this
to be a fitting ritual. We can use the snorts
and behavior of domestic animals like horses. We can use
the flights of birds. The behavior of boar in the

(01:21:31):
wild is also used, like whether they go into the
lakes can determine whether an alcohol whether you should go
to war, for example. And you know specific birds have
specific relationships to specific guiarty so the raven to the
or father odin the falcon to freyer these and we

(01:21:51):
this is This explains how the gods reside in the
matter of animals, despite their being also some ultaneously beyond matter,
the matter is contained within them, and they can use
intermediary beings like dimornis, as the Greeks say, to influence
these material phenomena like animals. To ensure the effectiveness of

(01:22:20):
the right, the objects had to be fitting procescon to
the god invoked and to the material attachment to of
the soul. These collections formed receptacles for the gods and
the Yamblicus says that theatists created them with stones, herbs, animals, aromatics,
and other sanctified objects that possessed intimate affiliations with the

(01:22:41):
gods invoked. These material objects were necessary for worship, and
therefore Yamblucus warns Porphyry that quote one or not to
despise all matter, only matter that is a strange from
the gods, for matter that is related to them should
be chosen, since it is able to be in harmony
with the shrines built of gods, the erecting of statues,

(01:23:02):
and also with the holy acts of sacrifices. For there
is no other way that places on earth or men
who dwell in them might receive participation in the superior
beings unless a foundation of this kind is first established.
The objects and shapes used to erect a temple or

(01:23:23):
consecrate a statue had to possess sun thermata of the
god invoked or theatic contacted would not be affected. So
this is so relevant? Or pagans, because why they say,
why do we have to build an ash? If Odin
is the god of ash? Why so we make ash?

(01:23:44):
When we make an idol of Odin, it should be
made from ash. Why why? If he's a god, he
can manifest in anything, he can take any form he wants.
But not all matter is equal, and some matter is
a more fitting receptacle for some god. So if we
want to engage with Odin, we need to use that
most fitting procescon matter, which is the wood of the

(01:24:07):
ash tree. And the same applies for the animals that
are sacred to different different term gods, different herbs different
you know, the Nine Herbs charm shows nine specific herbs
that are associated with Odin. Who we know that we
can't Not all matter is equal, and all religions have
also taboos about certain substances that are ritually unclean. I

(01:24:30):
don't even want to mention some of them, but you
can imagine certain things. This is what some people find hard.
How can I think of the world as divine when
there's such disgusting things here? Well, yes, not all things
are equally divine. The divine is sometimes less present, something
that is ritually impure. Quote from the beginning, it is

(01:24:51):
necessary to divide ecstasy into two species. One is turned
towards the inferior, and the other reaches up to the superior.
One is filled with foolish and delirium, but the other
imparts goods more honorable than human wisdom. One degenerates to
a disorderly, confused, and material movement, but the other gives
itself to the cause that rules over the very order

(01:25:12):
of the cosmos. The former deviates from understanding because it
is deprived of knowledge, but the latter because it is
attached to beings that transcend all human understanding. The former
is unstable, the latter unchangeable. The first is counter to nature,
the latter is beyond nature. The former makes the soul descend,
the latter raises it up. Well, I've gone over quite

(01:25:37):
a lot of the book, and I think that's probably
enough for you to get an idea of it. It's
not a conventional review, but the GIVET book review rarely is.
I often just talk about the parts of the book
I enjoyed and read some quotes that I think were
relevant to my audience. So yes, it's a great I
found it very helpful for me to understand the Amblican

(01:25:59):
the urgy and how it could be relevant to to
Heathens and to polytheists in the modern world in general.
And it's very interesting. I think you're always an accomplished author,
and I think his new book might be worth a
read too. He's obviously not a Heathen and he doesn't

(01:26:20):
have the same concerns that I do. But I say
that we should heathen should be open to understanding the
nature of the divine as it was understood by other
people and people who are trying to think about these questions.
And obviously my religion is heathenly not Platonism, and theogy

(01:26:43):
is the working of the with the gods is just
a way of talking about polytheism in a philosophical context,
and it's certainly very useful for us to also to
to you know, have this philosophical tradition which is specifically
intended to defend polytheism. From attacks from Christians because that's

(01:27:04):
often what people like Julian were doing, and you wouldn't
have em Julian without yamblocus. So yeah, if you want
to get into yamblocus, there's probably a good introduction to
the topic. I hope you found this review helpful. I'll
see you next time. Keep surviving the Jive.

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