Theurgist
The first school of practical theurgy (from qeod, god, and ergon work,) in the Christian period, was founded by Iamblichus among certain Alexandrian Platonists. The priests, however, who were attached to the temples of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Greece, and whose business it was to evoke the gods during the celebration of the Mysteries, were known by this name, or its equivalent in other tongues, from the earliest archaic period. Spirits (but not those of the dead, the evocation of which was called Necromancy) were made visible to the eyes of mortals. Thus a theurgist had to be a hierophant and an expert in the esoteric learning of the Sanctuaries of all great countries. The Neo‐platonists of the school of Iamblichus were called theurgists, for they performed the so‐called “ceremonial magic”, and evoked the simulacra or the images of the ancient heroes, “gods”, and daimonia (daimovia, divine, spiritual entities). In the rare cases when the presence of a tangible and visible “ spirit ” was required, the theurgist had to furnish the weird apparition with a portion of his own flesh and blood — he had to perform the thepœa or the “creation of gods”, by a mysterious process well known to the old, and perhaps some of the modern, Tântrikas and initiated Brahmans of India. Such is what is said in the Book of Evocations of the pagodas. It shows the perfect identity of rites and ceremonial between the oldest Brahmanic theurgy and that of the Alexandrian Platonists. The following is from Isis Unveiled: “The Brahman Grihasta (the evocator) must be in a state of complete purity before he ventures to call forth the Pitris. After having prepared a lamp, some sandal‐incense, etc., and having traced the magic circles taught him by the superior Guru, in order to keep away bad spirits, he ceases to breathe, and calls the fire (Kundalini) to his help to disperse his body.” He pronounces a certain number of times the sacred word, and “ his soul (astral body) escapes from its prison, his body disappears, and the soul (image) of the evoked spirit descends into the double body and animates it”. Then “his (the theurgist’s) soul (astral) re‐enters its body, whose subtile particles have again been aggregating (to the objective sense), after having formed from themselves an aerial body for the deva (god or spirit) he evoked And then, the operator propounds to the latter questions “on the mysteries of Being and the transformation of the imperishable ”. The popular prevailing idea is that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and other thaumaturgic works, by super natural powers. But this never was the fact. They did it simply by the liberation of their own astral body, which, taking the form of a god or hero, served as a medium or vehicle through which the special current preserving the ideas and knowledge of that hero or god could be reached and manifested. (See Iamblichus.) (TG).
See also: Iamblichus
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- Quotes: H. P. Blavatsky
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Shortly: The first school of practical theurgy (from qeod, god, and ergon work,) in the Christian...