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Theurgy


Theurgy (/ˈθɜːri/; from Greek θεουργία, Theourgia) describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.

Theurgy means "divine-working". The first recorded use of the term is found in the mid-second-century neo-Platonist work the Chaldean Oracles (Fragment 153 des Places (Paris, 1971): 'For the theourgoí do not fall under the fate-governed herd'). The source of Western theurgy can be found in the philosophy of late Neoplatonists, especially Iamblichus. In late Neoplatonism, the spiritual Universe is regarded as a series of emanations from the One. From the One emanated the Divine Mind (Nous) and in turn from the Divine Mind emanated the World Soul (Psyche). Neoplatonists insisted that the One is absolutely transcendent and in the emanations nothing of the higher was lost or transmitted to the lower, which remained unchanged by the lower emanations.

Although the Neoplatonists are considered polytheists, they embraced a form of monism.

For Plotinus, and Iamblichus' teachers Anatolius and Porphyry, the emanations are as follows:


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