Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999)

©Mathesis Publications 121

Eros and Arithmos:

Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus

Gregory Shaw

... since this philosophy was at first

handed down by the Gods, it cannot
be comprehended without the
Gods' aid.
- lamblichus
One only attains mathematics
through a theophany.
-Novalis

This essay has two aims: first, to examine the role of numbers and eros in
lamblichean theurgy and second, to show that the employment of subtle ritual
objects-particularly the theurgic use of mathematical images-is entirely con-
sistent with the Neoplatonism of Plotinus. My second aim, then, suggests that
Plotinus can be seen as a kind of theurgist, not a conjurer or sorcerer in line with
the caricatures invented and condemned by scholars earlier this century, but a
theurgist in an Iamblichean sense, i.e., one who voluntarily enters into divine
activity, 'exchanging one life for another' , 1 'human life for the life of the gods' .2
While there are obvious differences between lamblichus and Plotinus as regards
the importance of ritual, I argue that these differences-significant enough to
have been recognized by Neoplatonists 3-have caused scholars to overlook a
more significant but less obvious similarity, one that becomes clearer when Plot-
inus's 'thought experiments' are examined in light of the principles of
lamblichean theurgy.4 In making my case for Plotinus as a theurgist, I examine
where Plotinus fits in the theurgic itinerary of lamblichus and attempt to demon-
strate the erotic role of numbers in the 'theurgy' of both lamblichus and Plotinus.

1 Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 270,18-19. The standard edition is that of des Places, 1966, and I use
the enumeration of Parthey supplied in des Places's edition. All subsequent references to the De Mys-
teriis will be noted as DM.
2 Plotinus, Ennead i 2.7(25-28); all translations, unless otherwise noted, from Armstrong 1966-
1988.
3 Damascius says that 'Plotinus, Porphyry, and many others honor philosophy more highly,
while Iamblichus, Syrianus, Proc\us, and the theurgists give more honor to the hieratic art' (West-
erink 1977, 105).
4 On Plotinus' s thought experiments as meditation techniques, see Rappe 1995, 164-169; 1996,
259-262.
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Let us begin with Plotinus's statement introducing Ennead iii 8: On Nature,

Contemplation, and the One. He says:
Supposing we played a little before entering upon our serious
concern and maintained that all things are striving after Con-
templation, looking to Vision as their one end-and this, not
merely beings endowed with reason but even the unreasoning
animals, the Principle that rules in growing things, and the
Earth that produces these-and that all achieve their purpose in
the measure possible to their kind, each attaining Vision and
possessing itself of the End in its own way and degree, some
things in entire reality, others in mimicry and in image-we
would scarcely find anyone to endure so strange a thesis. 5
In this remarkable passage Plotinus suggests that all of nature is drawn toward
contemplation, that plants, animals, human beings, and even the earth, are all-
with more or less intensity--engaged in contemplation of the One. Later, Ploti-
nus suggests that contemplation is itself a creative act, that contemplation is the
engine of cosmogenesis (Lloyd 1990, 182-184; see also Gatti 1996, 32-34). To
enter the world of Plotinian contemplation, therefore, is to enter an immense vor-
tex whose life is permeated by the magnetism of the One at its core. From the
Nous and the constant rhythms of the star gods to the fitful drama of human souls
and even to the brief life of insects and plants, all things are drawn to the One,
and the entire cosmos is ordered and sustained by the different intensities and
expressions of this attraction. 6
When Plotinus describes the cosmos and the soul as erotically charged he
invites us, as Plato did, to reenter our own experiences of this magnetism. In the
Symposium, Plato describes the gradations of this erotic experience in terms of
our different attractions to the beauty of the One. Like Plotinus, he reminds us
that the stars, animals, and even plants are drawn irresistably by its magnetic
power (Symp. 186a-b; 207a-c). Both Plato and Plotinus envision an erotic cos-
mos, a world revealed and sustained by its collective attraction to the One. With a
rare genius for communicating the experience of this eros, Plotinus suggests that
our attraction for the One is, paradoxically, an expression of the One itself in its
own ceaseless production of multiplicity. Describing this 'productive power',

5 Ennead iii 8.1, MacKenna 1956/1991. See Lloyd 1990, 182-188, for 8EOlptc( as 'conscious-
ness', or 'knowledge in activity'.
6 Although in iii 8.1 Plotinus says that all things strive (EqltECl8m) for contemplation, this striv-

ing/yearning functions in the same way that eros functions in the universe and in souls, drawing all
things to the One. Armstrong 1968, vii 157n2, says that 'implicit in his [Plotinus's] whole system' is
that 'our desire to return to the Good is given by the Good'. Not only does Plotinus conceive our
return to the Good as an erotic movement, even the return of the One in the Many to itself is described
as erotic (vi 8.15.1f). See Plotinus's references to this desire, which he refers to as EPOl<;, Eql£Cil<;,
op£~t<;, and their cognates. "EpOl<;: vi 7.22.7-22, the soul's EPOl<; for the Good is given by the Good;
cf. iii 2.17.5; vi 9,9.28; Eql£Ot<;: i 7.1.23-24, all things aspire toward (£qll£1CXt) the Good; v 5.12.12-\3,
the soul's innate desire (E<p£OtV ou~<p8'tov) for the Good; cf. ii 2.3.32-33; v 3.11.12; op£~t<;: vi 5.1.12,
all things desire (opEy£08at) the Good; cf. i 6.7.1-2.
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Plotinus says:
if it [the One] did not exist, neither would all things, nor would
Intellect be the first and universal life. What is above life is
cause of life; for the activity of life, which is all things, is not
first, but itself flows out, so to speak, as if from a spring. For
think of a spring which has no other origin, but gives the whole
of itself to rivers, and is not used up by the rivers but remains
itself at rest, but the rivers that rise from it, before each of them
flows in a different direction, remain for a while all together,
though each of them knows, in a way, the direction in which it
is going to let its stream flow. (Ennead iii 8.10.1-10)
Plotinus's multiplicity remains secretly bound to unity; as he says, 'in each and
every thing there is some one to which you will trace it back' (iii 8.10.20), and
back even further until we reach the originating One which, Plotinus says, 'fills
us with wonder' (iii 8. iO.31). Individual souls are moved by centripetal attraction
to this One while its magnetic power simultaneously breathes out to the periph-
ery, creating and sustaining the very lives that are drawn back to it, like an all-
encompassing circulatory system.? As Plotinus says of the One, 'he is, if we may
say so, borne to his own interior, as ifhe were in love with himself (vi 8.16.12-
13). In this light, even the dispersed life of the human soul becomes, for Plotinus,
part of the' inner life of the One' (Bussanich 1996, 63). Our very attraction to the
One is a gift, Plotinus says, that comes from the One (vi 7.22.19-20), so all cen-
tripetal movements to the Source are rooted in the centrifugal movement that
pours out of it. In the dialectic of Plotinian erotics, the lover is revealed to be the
Beloved: 'that same self, Plotinus says, 'is lovable and love and love of himself'
(vi 8.15.1; see Schroeder 1992,111).
Perhaps Plotinus was right. We could scarcely find anyone to endure so strange
a thesis: an erotically charged cosmos continually being created and dissolved by
the attraction to its source. This is the cosmos inherited by Platonists of the later
3rd century, and I will now turn to Iamblichus to see how he attempted to partic-
ipate in this paradoxical vision. I argue that by reshaping Plotinian erotics in line
with Pythagorean principles Iamblichus extended Plotinus's vision even more
effectively into the densities of embodied life. Iamblichus's theurgical Platonism,
therefore, should be seen as a development of Plotinianism, as a 'fleshing out' of
Plotinus's vision. s

7 Schroeder 1992, 108 speaks of 'a complete circuit of dynamic continuity' to describe the pres-
ence of the One to itself and with others. See also Lloyd 1990. 130-135 on the centripetal/centrifugal
dynamics of Plotinus's cosmos. and Bussanich 1987, 183.
8 In 1974 A.H. Amlstrong suggested that 'it is possible to develop a theory of theurgy from one
side of the thought of Plolinus' (appearing in print in Armstrong 1979, 187). This suggestion was
examined with great profit by Smith 1974,81-99. Lowry 1980,20-21 suggests that with theurgy
Iamblichus 'carried the obvious Plotinian philosophical standpoint to its limits and tried to validate
it'. Wallis 1972, 100-137 places Iamblichean theurgy within the context of Plotin us's thought. In this
regard, see also Sheppard 1980, 151-161; 1982,220-221 with Shaw's critique 1985,9-10; and
Stacker 1995, 225-229.
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I. Pythagorean Theurgy and Primordial Worship

Our understanding of Iamblichus has undergone significant changes in this
century. E.R. Dodds and other scholars of his generation dismissed Iamblichus's
influence as irrational and Oriental, an example of the 'failure of nerve' that
decayed the Greek rationalist tradition. Theurgy represented a prime example of
this failure, a misguided attempt to manipulate the gods through spells and sor-
cery, a superstitious practice to which the rational Plotinus never succumbed. 9
Later, thanks primarily to Dillon 1973, Saffrey 1973,281-295, and Larsen 1972
(see also Trouillard 1972, 171-189 and Zinzten 1983,312-328), Iamblichus's
reputation as a serious thinker has been recovered. Recently, Fowden 1986,95-
153 and Shaw 1995 have argued that theurgy was a philosophically sophisticated
response to social and philosophical challenges faced by Platonists of the 4th
century, while Lloyd 1967,269-325 and Steel 1978,7-77, 142-161 previously
explained the importance and coherence of Iamblichus's psychology of the com-
pletely descended soul, in contrast to Plotinus's and Porphyry's belief that the
soul remains unfallen. The consequences of this difference on the soul's descent
are significant and help to explain the function of theurgy, but they may be over-
emphasized. 10 Against the background of his theory of the undescended soul, one
might easily exaggerate the significance of Plotinus' s description of physical
matter as 'primal evil, absolute evil' (Ennead i 8.3.39-40) or his 'grandiloquent'
reply to Porphyry that the cosmic gods 'need to come to me, not I to them' (Por-
phyry VP 10), to portray Plotinus as holding a dualistic and anti-cosmic stance.
While it is true that Plotinus clearly favors-almost exclusively-the immaterial
end of the spirit/matter continuum, there are many passages in the Enneads that
make it clear that Plotinus was not a dualist or anti-cosmic. 11 Even if Iamblichus,
in his polemical writings and commentaries, misunderstood or caricatured some
of Plotinus's positions, we need not follow the Syrian in this regard. 12 My own
characterization of Plotinus as 'utopian' and 'otherworldly' was an error of this
kind,13 for the greater significance of the Enneads suggests that Plotinus and

9 Dodds 194111949,283-311, esp. 288. Murray 1951 coined the phrase 'failure of nerve' to char-
acterize the decline of Greek rationalism exemplified in theurgy. Nilsson 1948/1969, 192 described
theurgy as 'nothing more than magic making a claim to be reliigion ... [and] Christianity represented
the sane reaction against occultist phantasms and theosophical fogs'. Cumont 19111 1956, 88 dis-
missed theurgy as mere charlatanry.
10 I believe that Plotinus's reference to his 'head in heaven' (iv 3.12.5-6) and his portrayal of the
higher soul 'illuminating' the body from above (i 1.12.25-29) may be better appreciated as evocative
images than as philosophical explanations. Shaw 1996, 17 characterizes these descriptions of the
undescended soul as 'erotic enchantments in the form of philosophic discourse. yet taken out of the
context of his [Plotinus's] seminars his "explanations" were likely to have been misunderstood'.
II See van den Berg (forthcoming) for a discussion of the misunderstanding of Porphyry's
remark in VP 10.
12 Phillips 1995, 140 maintains that Iamblichus misconstrued Plotinus's use of 1tpOCl.tPE<Jt~;
Steel 1978, 31, 45 also notes Iamblichus's distortion of Plotinus.
13 Shaw 1995, 8-18; although this characterization is qualified (68): 'This admittedly portrays a
distorted picture of Plotinus's view of the soul', it leaves the overall impression that Plotinus was
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Iamblichus share the same vision of the cosmos. In fact, it is possible to see
Iamblichus's insistence on the soul's material embodiment as his effort to pre-
serve Plotinus' s vision of an erotically unified cosmos and to protect it from a
dualist tendency that would sever the bonds that hold the visible and invisible
worlds together. Iamblichus's Pythagoreanism allowed him to secure these bonds
and to extend Plotinus's vision, making it as relevant to the common man as to
the philosopher. 14
Despite having been Plotinus's biographer and one of his leading students,
Porphyry reportedly felt that 'no doctrine had yet been established' to form the
basis of a 'universal way' of salvation, and he tried-but failed-to develop this
himself. Augustine reports that Porphyry 'was not satisfied with all that he had
taken such pains to learn on the subject of the liberation of the soul. .. and felt that
he failed to obtain any supreme authority which he was bound to follow on such
an important topic' .15 Such authority was assumed by Iamblichus, particularly
within the context of theurgy. Yet this was far easier for Iamblichus to accom-
plish, for unlike Porphyry he did not think a 'universal way' needed to be estab-
lished-least of all by a human being-for it had already been established by the
gods and was still practiced by the sacred races of the world. Porphyry had sim-
ply failed to notice.
What Porphyry failed to see was the vision of his teacher Plotinus: the entire
cosmos in a state of active contemplation, with all things being drawn from and
returning to their origin. For Iamblichus and Plotinus the universal way was the
life of the cosmos itself where the signatures of the gods were revealed in a con-
tinuous theophany. Like the pious communities of Plato's golden age (Laws
7l6a-b), Iamblichus believed that sacred races like the Assyrians and Egyptians
continued to participate in this vision, while other races-most notably the
Greeks-had alienated themselves from the divine life by setting themselves up
as authorities, preferring to 'talk about' gods rather than worship and experience
them (DM 259.5-19). The Egyptians, by contrast, preserved their theophanies
without distortion, allowing the One-in Plotinus's terms-to be borne back to
its own interior through their sacred rites. 16 The rituals of the Egyptians transmit-
ted the power of the gods because the rites themselves were the gods in action,

more dualistic than he was.

14 Zintzen 1983, 319 demonstrates that lamblichus translated Plotinus's noetics into theurgical
terminology; Nasemann 1991,233-235 juxtaposes passages from Plotinus (e.g., iv 8.6.7-15) with
those from lamblichus (DM v 23: 233.7-16) to demonstrate that lamblichus was following a Plotinian
trajectory that acknowledged the abundance of divine power in the material world (vi 5.12.5-1; cf.
DM v 23: 232.1 1-15), the difference being that lamblichus examines the concrete expressions and
details of this 8UVCIJ1\~ as regards human souls. She argues (281) that what distinguishes lamblichus
from Plotinus was the former's interest in the specific material expressions of this OUV(1J.l\~ and its
practical application, an interest not evident in Plotinus.
15 Fowden 1986, 132. Fowden 1986, 131-141 has shed much light on lamblichean Neoplatonism
by comparing it to the writings of the Hermetica and their Egyptian background.
16 This should not be understood as making the One dependent on the rites, but that the One
allows itself to be entered through those rites that express its 'circulation'.
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the theophany of nature expressed in religious ritual. On this point, lamblichus

says:
By imitating the nature of the cosmos and the creative activity
of the Gods, the Egyptians themselves produce images of mys-
tical insights-hidden and invisible-just as nature symboli-
cally reveals the invisible measures through visible shapes ...
(DM 249.14-250.5)
Plotinus also had praised the 'wise men' of Egypt and referred to their hiero-
glyphs as concrete expressions of noetic insight. The Egyptians, Plotinus says.
avoided the use of discursive propositions or philosophical arguments for they
had learned to 'reveal the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world' directly
through the images inscribed in their temples (Ennead v 8.6). Plotinus and
lamblichus were both careful not to reduce divine realities to discursive formu-
las. For them the cosmos is not, as Plotinus puts it, 'the result of following out a
train of logical consequences and purposive thought: it is prior to consequential
and purposive thinking' (v 8.7.42-43).
In the polemic of the De Mysteriis, lamblichus criticizes Porphyry for giving
too much importance to these discursive formulas. For example, when Porphyry
begins a question by 'granting that the gods exist' lamblichus insists that
speaking in this way is not right! For the innate knowledge of
the Gods pre-exists in our very essences; it is superior to all
judgment and choice and exists prior to reason and demonstra-
tion. From the beginning, it is established with the soul's
essential desire for the Good. (DM 7.13-8.1)
lamblichus speaks here of 'an innate knowledge of the Gods tied to the soul's
essential desire (E<p£(')t~) for the Good'. This, I would argue, is the basis for his
theurgy, for theurgy attempts to awaken souls to the pre-conceptual eros that
exists prior to discursive thinking,17 to move us 'out of our heads' and back into
the divine life of the Egyptian wise men, back into the erotic trance of the circling
stars and the dance of nature around the One.
Nature revealed the traces of this divine life, but Greek intellectuals like Por-
phyry could no longer see it. 18 lamblichus emphasized even more than Plotinus
that the way back to the gods is revealed in the hieroglyphs of nature: in minerals,
plants, animals, seasonal changes, and in the traditional rites that celebrate them
through song, prayer, dance, images, and finally in the subtlest of all hieroglyphs,
the divine numbers that sustain all forms of life and allow the soul its most inti-
mate participation in the One.
Plotinus also acknowledged the presence of the gods in the world and refers to

17 Precedents for this can be seen in Plotinus Ennead v 5.12.12-13 where he speaks of the Good
arousing an 'innate desire' (EqJEO'lV m)~qJu10V) for itself before we are conscious; see also fragments
43 and 44 of the Chaldean Oracles, Majercik 1989, which speak of a 'deep eros' (~aeu~ Ep(j)~)
implanted in all souls by the Creator to stir their desire for him.
18 In the DM 259.5-19 Iamblichus contrasts the impiety and instability of the intellectually inno-
vative 'Greeks' with the sacred customs and rites of holy barbarians.
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their traces as moving 'letters' written in the heavens and in nature (Ennead iii
3.6.18-20). Iamblichus has been ridiculed as 'irrational' for using minerals and
plants in theurgic rites, but Plotinus also believed that divine powers extended
into the 'nature of stones and the active power of herbs with wondrous results'
(iv 4.35.69-70). For both Neoplatonists the entire cosmos, visible and invisible,
was a dance choreographed by its eros for the One, an eros whose manifesting
patterns, Plotinus says, follow the law of proportion (avuAoyiu, iii 3.6.25-29; cf.
iii 3.7) and number (apt8J..loc;, iv 4.35.13). To read the traces of this dance, Ploti-
nus says, one must be 'a wise and godlike man' (iii 3.6.17-18), and he approv-
ingly refers to the 'wise men of old' who employed their knowledge of divine
correspondences to build statues and temples to secure the presence of the gods
in worship (iv 3.11). Yet beyond this intriguingly theurgic passage, Plotinus has
little to say in terms of specific uses of the analogies that bind the visible and
invisible worlds together. Perhaps because of his unorthodox views on the unde-
scended soul or his lack of interest in Pythagorean speculations on these analo-
gies, or perhaps due to his concern about possible abuses of these
correspondences,19 Plotinus did not develop the theoretical framework for reli-
gious practices seen in Iamblichean theurgy.
Because Iamblichus believed that the soul is completely embodied and projects
its Aoym into the phenomenal world, it could recover its 'original nature' only by
ritually appropriating their natural correspondences (avaAoym). The divine pow-
ers that Plotinus finds in stones and herbs become a necessary part of the theur-
gists' receptacle to restore contact with the gods. Read properly, nature reveals
the soul's lost divinity and to recover it the soul needs to lead its consciousness
back into resonance with the gods hidden even in dense material objects.
Iamblichus explains:
Since it was necessary that earthly things not be deprived of
participation in the divine, the earth received a certain portion
capable of receiving the Gods. The theurgic art, therefore, rec-
ognizing 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 and other sacred, perfect, and deiform objects of a
similar kind. Then from all these it produces a perfect and pure
receptacle. (DM233.7-16)
Proclus provides even more specificity. After establishing an erotic context for
theurgy, he says that priests developed their art after recognizing the 'sympathy
of all things to one another' as well as their connection to 'invisible powers'
(Bidez 1928, 148). Proclus' s evocati ve example of this latter connection
describes the attraction of a flower to its source. He says:
Each thing prays according to the rank it occupies in nature and
sings the praise of the leader of the divine series to which it

I~ Porphyry VP 10 describes the sorcery ofOlympius who attacked Plotinus using 'star spells'.
128

belongs ... the heliotrope moves to the extent that it is free to

move, and in its rotation, if we could hear the sound of the air
buffeted by its movement, we should be aware that it is a hymn
to its king, such as it is within the power of a plant to sing.
(Corbin 1969, 105-106)
Proclus describes the same kind of correspondence in various animals, plants and
minerals, each of which bears the 'token' or (JUV~J.1U of its ruling god. Theur-
gists not only recognized the correspondence or avuAoyiu between an earthly
object and its heavenly archetype, they also were able to diagnose the specific
avuAoyiu required by a soul and create a receptacle for bringing the soul into
resonance with its god. If these natural (Juv8~J.1utu carried the resonance of their
Lords-as the theurgists believed-then theurgic rites should not be seen as
attempts to manipulate the gods but to bring the soul into resonance with them.20
The divine powers in nature, therefore, served collectively as the 'tuning instru-
ment' for embodied souls. As Iamblichus says:
He who celebrates all these [divine 1 powers and offers to each
gifts that are pleasing and honors that are as similar to them as
possible, will always remain secure and infallible since he has
properly completed, perfect and whole, the receptacle of the
divine choir ({l1tOOOX~V toU 8dou xopou). (DM 229.3-7)
Iamblichus directed his attention to precisely those areas that Plotinus
addressed only in general terms, that is, to the correspondences that bind the visi-
ble and invisible worlds together and to their practical application to the needs of
souls. While Plotinus showed little interest in public worship or in divinational
practices, Iamblichus venerated such traditional forms of piety as expressions of
humanity's innate eros for the One and therefore necessary as receptacles to pre-
serve our contact with the gods. Iamblichus believed that these traditional rites
were initiated and directed by the gods and were essential to our piety, but in the
late 3rd century they lacked a comprehensive theoretical framework (Porphyry's
'uni versal way'?) which Iamblichus found in Pythagorean teachings. 21
Iamblichus studied the Theology of Numbers under Anatolius and wrote a 10 vol-
ume study, On Pythagorean ism, that aimed to initiate souls into the lifestyle of
Pythagoras, the avatar of wisdom. In On the Pythagorean Life [VPj, Iamblichus

20 Iamblichus explicitly rejects the notion that a theurgic invocation (rrp6crKA.ll(jt~) compelled
the gods. 'It does not, as the name seems to indicate, incline the Intellect of the Gods to men, hut
according to the truth itself, the invocation makes the intelligence of men fit to participate in the
Gods, and harmonizes it with them through orderly persuasions' (DM 42.9-15).
21 Kingsley 1995, 289-334 maintains that it is largely due to our contemporary prejudices and
misreading of the evidence that we find it hard to reconcile the theurgists' attention to stones and
herbs with their mastery of Pythagorean mathematics. Kingsley's ground-breaking study argues per-
suasively that the Pythagoreans (and Neopythagoreans) were recipients and transmitters of an ancient
magical tradition that has been misunderstood by contemporary scholars (320). He explains that for
Iamblichus the Pythagorean Pio<; demanded a thorough knowledge of what we, today, condescend-
ingly refer to as 'magical lore', a knowledge that was necessarily as practical as it was theoretical
(304-307).
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says that Pythagoras 'made a synthesis of divine philosophy and the worship of
the gods' ,22 and this is precisely what Iamblichus aimed to do by integrating
Pythagorean doctrines with traditional rites of sacrifice and divination. The
result, Dominic O'Meara says, was 'the most comprehensive and systematic'
development of Pythagorean teachings in antiquity, one that 'played a decisive
role in the history of later Greek philosophy' (O'Meara 1989, 30). Like the
ancient wise men of Plotinus, the Pythagoreans understood the correspondences
between the intelligible gods and physical reality, and they preserved their
knowledge in the discipline of mathematics, including its practical application in
religion, medicine, and politics.
Most importantly, perhaps, Pythagorean mathematics allowed Iamblichus to
exorcize sensible matter of the evil with which it had been identified by Gnostics,
Platonic dualists, and even by Plotinus. Sensible matter for Iamblichus was no
longer 'evil itself' -as Plotinus had said (Ennead i 8.3.38-40)-but an expres-
sion of the divine and indefinable Dyad, the principle of division and multiplicity
extending from the One-Being to the continual generation of entities in the mate-
rial world. Strictly speaking, the Monad and the Dyad were not numbers for
Iamblichus, but unfathomable principles of numbers: sheer simplicity and infi-
nite dividedness, from which all numbers derive, each bearing a unique expres-
sion of the mixing of these apxai. This arithmogenesis, the Pythagoreans said,
was the result of combining things 'naturally at war' into a state of harmony.23
The numerical opposites-seen in the odd and even numbers-were harmonized
in the ten proportions discussed by Iamblichus in his Introduction to the Arith-
metic of Nicomachus 72.9-13. From Nicomachus Iamblichus learned that the first
ten numbers were gods and that their combinations gave rise to all subsequent
number gods. Yet the One, as first principle, remained pre-eminent, containing
within itself the first ten numbers as they contain all subsequent numbers. From
this persective, even the Dyad, the principle of division and 'non-unity', was con-
tained in the Monad, and in the Theology of Numbers, attributed to Iamblichus,
the author states that 'the Pythagoreans call the Monad matter (\SAT]) and recepta-
cle of all since it is the cause of the Dyad and of all recei ving ratios'. 24
Iamblichus maintained that the One is both the unifying power that gives rise to
continuity among numbers and sensible phenomena as well as the dividing
power that separates and thus gives rise to discontinuity.25 From this perspective,
all numbers, including their dyadic mother, were expressions of the dividing and
unifying powers contained in the One.
Arithmogenesis, with all its numerical proportions, was the model for the cos-
mogenesis described by Plato in the Timaeus. The Monad and Dyad in numbers,

22 Dillon and Hershbell 1991, sect. 151: En O£ <pacn Kat cruvBetov alHov lWtTicrat tT]v Bdav
<ptAocro<piav Kat Bepalldav. See also Clark 1989.
23 In Nichomachi Introductionem Arithmeticae [In Nic.l, Pistelli 1894 and Klein 1975b, 72.26-
73.3.
24 The%goumena Arithmeticae, de Falco 1922 and Klein 1975c, 5.12-15.

25 Simplicius, In Cat. 135.8ff. See Festugiere 1953, 181 n 1 and Larsen 1972. fragment 37.
130

Iamblichus says, correspond to form and matter in the cosmos (In Nic. 78.11-14),
and the 'persuasive necessity' that mixed the opposites of same and different to
form the physical world had already mixed unity and multiplicity together to
form the world of numbers.26 Numbers are the invisible structure of the visible
world and the Timaeus describes the numerical proportions of the World Soul
and explains how even the four material elements, fire, earth, air, and water,
derive from specific geometric shapes that serve as the bases for sensible reality.
Plato's cosmos is a world of numbers that generates a physical body whose
causal principles are revealed in the basic number patterns and geometric shapes
of the sensible world.
The human soul is also a numerical entity whose relationship to the different
branches of mathematics became the speculation of many Pythagoreans after
Plato. Iamblichus reports that Speusippus had defined the soul as a geometrical
figure, Xenocrates as a number, and Moderatus as a mathematical harmony
(Wachsmuth 1958, i 364.2-23). Iamblichus, however, prefers not to identify the
soul with one class of mathematicals but with all. He says:
For if the soul is a numerable idea and subsists according to the
numbers containing harmony, all the symmetries of the math-
ematical order ought to be subsumed together under the soul
along with all the mathematical proportions. On account of
this, then, the soul coexists together with the geometric, arith-
metic and harmonic proportions, so that by analogy the soul is
identical with [all] mathematical ratios and has a certain kin-
ship with the principles of existing things. (DCMS 40.19-41.3)
.. .In view of all this, in short, the definition of the soul contains
in itselfthe sum-total of mathematical reality. (DCMS 42.4-6)
Yet unlike the numerical constitutions of the World Soul and heavenly souls,
the numbers of the human soul possess a consistency unable to withstand the sen-
sations of embodiment, causing the soul to become lost in the divisions of the
indefinite Dyad, the continual flow of generated matter. To reject matter or the
body, however, was not a Pythagorean but a dualist solution to the soul's confu-
sion, and in Iamblichus's estimation the effort to escape from materiality only
confirms the soul's entrapment, defining it by the very phenomena it rejects. The
Pythagorean and theurgic solution was to recover the soul's innate proportions
by ritually re-aligning them with their divine correspondences in nature.
The inescapable demands of physical reality, our biological urges and political
activities, were not unfortunate necessities to be nobly endured (Ennead iv
4.44.7-25), but the soul's opportunity to participate in theophany, to act in corre-
spondence with the proportional intimacy and friendship (qllAia) of the gods.
Iamblichus says that for Pythagoreans all existence derived from the harmonic
mixing of opposites: in physical elements, in the soul and in social relationships
(VP 130); consequently, Pythagoras organized his communities according to

26 De Communi Mathematica Scientia [DCMS] , Festa 1891 and Klien 1975a, 15.17.
 131

these same proportions. Iamblichus reports that Pythagoras employed the model
of a right triangle with sides measuring 3, 4, and 5 to establish political harmony
and justice among divergent constituents of his community (VP 131). The consti-
tution of Pythagorean communities, therefore, served as a receptacle of the gods
for it was in precise avaAoyia with the constitution of the cosmos, and
Pythagoreans sought to establish the same divine proportions in family relation-
ships, in friendships, and in the soul.
The function of these proportions was to transform the enmity of things natu-
rally at war into bonds of friendship and love, the Pythagorean <plAia. <IllAia was
the divine power that binds all things to all and Iamblichus lists a wide range of
phenomena that express it (VP 229). The Pythagorean life demanded that one
discover this <plAia in one's body, soul, and family, as well as in the community
and in one's worship of the gods. In Plotinian terms, the Pythagorean <plAia
revealed the One's procession into the Many and its erotic return through the
eternal measures of the cosmos. 27 Iamblichus believed that these same eternal
measures (J.,lE'tpa aiOta, DM 65.6) were preserved by Egyptian priests from
whom Pythagoras himself gained his knowledge of mathematical mysteries, and
to whom Iamblichus also looked for guidance and authority in establishing his
own synthesis of 'divine philosophy and the worship of the gods'. This
demanded that Iamblichus, like Pythagoras, develop a way of life that accounts
for differences among souls while allowing them 'equal' access to the gods.
Following the Pythagorean belief in the 'geometric equality that exists among
gods and men' (Gorgias 508b-c), Iamblichus outlined three kinds of theurgic
worship for three kinds of souls. While each soul suffered alienation from its
original nature and had become 'other to itself' (E'tepolOucr8m 1tpO~ €a\)'t~v) in
embodiment (Hayduck 1882, Simpiicius: De Anima, 223.31-32), not all souls
were self-alienated to the same degree, and these differences called for different
methods to receive the gods. Each soul was invited to re-enter the divine <plAia
but only according to its capacity, and the matching of this capacity to an appro-
priate form of theurgy expressed the same 'geometric equality' that defined the
measures of <plAia in the cosmos. It was, according to Iamblichus, a practical
matter on which he says:
Each performs his sacrifice according to what he is, not
according to what he is not; therefore the sacrifice should not
surpass the proper measure of the worshipper. (DM 220.6-9)
Following this principle, Iamblichus says that material souls who follow nature
and fate should perform material worship, noetic souls who have risen to the
divine Nou~ could perform immaterial and noetic rites, while intermediate souls
should perform rites including both material and immaterial elements. In effect,

27 Significantly, Aphrodite, the goddess accompanied by Eros, is identified with <plAia and with
the number 6, the first 'perfect' number, equal to the sum of its divisors 1,2, 3, uniting the opposites
of the even (female/matter) with the odd (male/form). See Gillian Clark's discussion 1989,68. Julian
(Wright 1980,410-411) calls Aphrodite 'a synthesis of the heavenly gods, and in their harmony she is
the spirit oflove (<plAta) and unity (EVOlO'l,),.
132

the more intense the soul's alienation, the greater the density of its ritual objects.
The vast majority of souls, the 'great herd' as Iamblichus calls them, perform
material theurgies employing objects that correspond to the suffering of their
own self-alienation. These rites included the use of dead bodies, the blood of ani-
mals, the consumption of victims, as well as the use of stones, plants, and other
material cruv8f]J.ta1:a of the gods. 28 The function of these sacrifices, Iamblichus
says, is to bring the soul back into a state of <plAta with the gods and daimons
immaterially present in the sacrificed objects and victims. The rapport estab-
lished with these gods provides a foundation to reach the immaterial gods, but if
the soul fails to honor the gods and daimons in matter it remains subject to their
rule and fails to make spiritual progress. Iamblichus, therefore, insists that
theurgy begins with the material gods. He says:
According to the art of the priests, it is necessary to begin
sacred rites from the material Gods, for the ascent to the imma-
terial Gods will not otherwise take place. (DM 217.8-11)
Iamblichus criticizes Porphyry for neglecting this rule and trying to move
directly into noetic worship. The result is failure 'to attain immaterial or material
blessings' (DM 220.3-5) and he warns Porphyry that
he who has not distributed to all [these powers] what is fitting
and in accord with the appropriate honor that each is worthy to
receive, will depart imperfect and deprived of participation in
the Gods. (228.19-229.3)
In the De Mysteriis Iamblichus has very little to say concerning noetic theurgy.
It is performed by those who are liberated from the constraints of nature and live
according to the Nous alone (225.1-5). Such souls, Iamblichus says, are
'extremely rare', and even they attain to the unitary worship of the One only 'at
the very end of life' (230.18). Such deifed souls perform a 'simple and incorpo-
real form of worship' (219.8), making 'noetic offerings' to the gods beyond the
cosmos. Although the De Mysteriis gives no explicit information on the nature of
these 'noetic offerings', the overwhelmingly Pythagorean context of
Iarnblichus's work suggests that the noetic offerings were numbers. Numbers,
after all, were the Pythagorean gods, and their powers descended through propor-
tional combinations to establish the structures of both the World Soul and human
souls. Numbers were everywhere, invisibly present in all of nature, so if the
noetic offerings were incorporeal numbers, the material and intermediate sacri-
fices would also have been numbers, as O'Meara's recent translation of
Iamblichean fragments suggests. In his treatise On Physical Number, Iamblichus
says:
Physical number is found in the lowest things, things generated
and divided in bodies. For the principles mixed in bodies, both
in animals and plants, are physical numbers, for each of these

28 DM217.14-218.9; 233.9-12. On material theurgies, see Shaw 1995,21-57,162-169; cf. Nase-

mann 1991,231-282.
 133

is born, grows, and dies at determined times. And the philoso-

pher should fit the appropriate numbers to the causes in
nature. (O'Meara 1990, 126, my emphasis)
The fitting of physical numbers to their divine causes and to the needs of the soul
was essential to the art of theurgy and was not limited to physical numbers. For,
Iamblichus says: 'As there are numbers fitting nature, so there are [numbers] fit-
ting ethical habits. And as there is a physical so there is an ethical arithmetic'
(O'Meara 1990,126). Maintaining that 'each single virtue fits a number',
Iambichus explains the numerical correspondences to wisdom, courage, temper-
ance, and justice (126). In theurgic terms, whenever these ethical numbers were
employed in incantations, music, or diagrams, the habits of the soul correspond-
ing to them would be aligned with the divine numbers they reveal, provided the
soul had the capacity (E1tt1:llon61:T]<;) to receive them. 29
For a Pythagorean Platonist, the soul is a numerical entity, so its transforma-
tions would necessarily have been numerical, whether this was achieved through
the use of physical numbers, ethical numbers, or numbers in their naked incorpo-
reality. In every case, what determined the kind of numbers one employed was
the soul's capacity (E1tt1:T]on61:1l<;) to receive them. Noetic souls had the rare
capacity to perform an entirely immaterial form of theurgy freed from material
expressions in art or nature. It is important to remember, however, that the imma-
terial theurgy of numbers was always 'geometrically equivalent' to material and
intermediate theurgies: acting in precise avuAoyiu with them.3o
In the De Mysteriis Iamblichus does not discuss incorporeal theurgy, but his
Pythagorean texts and the evidence of later theurgists, such as Proclus and Dam-
ascius, suggest that the noetic rites were mathematical. Iamblichus says that
Pythagoras taught the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian mysteries, including their
initiations into divine mathematics (VP 11). These 'mathematical mysteries'
(flu91lflUnKOt opytu<Jfloi, VP 228) allowed the soul to participate directly in the
number gods. In a cosmos whose body is generated by numbers it should not be
surprising that the most revered form of worship would engage numbers directly,
and Iamblichus says that Pythagoras taught the Sythian Abaris a form of 'divina-
tion through numbers' to replace his use of sacrificial animals (VP 93).
Iamblichus maintains that Pythagoras, following Orpheus, 'created a marvelous
divination and worship of the Gods according to the numbers most allied to
them' (VP 147).
That numbers were employed by Pythagoreans and theurgists is clear, yet what
is not clear is precisely how they were used. Iamblichus implies that the
Pythagoreans honored the gods with images carved into the shapes of Plato's five
geometric solids, including the docecahedron as the spheric image of the All (VP
88; see Clark 1989, 39, 66-67). Proclus and Damascius associate geometric

29 On l\7mT\On6nl~ as a component of every theurgy, see Shaw 1995, 86-87.

30 According to Iamblichus, all theurgic ritual is-in uvuAoyiu--cosmogonic activity. This is
what distinguishes theurgy from sorcery (DM 168.l3-16).
134

shapes and angles with specific deities, crediting their knowledge to the
Pythagorean Philolaus (Morrow 1970, Proclus: In Euclidem 173.11-21; cf.
Ruelle 1889, Damascius: Dubitationes et Solutiones ii 127), and Damascius says
that while each god is associated with a specific rectilinear form, 'it is certain that
the circular figure is common to all the intellectual Gods as intellectual' (Ruelle
1889, Damascius Dub. et Sol. ii 127). The circularity of the gods seems to be a
recurring motif, for in the De Mysteriis lamblichus explains that whenever a god
unites with the soul its possession is effected in a circular way (i:v K'DKAcp). In
dreams, in private acts of divination, or in public oracles, when the god takes
possession of a human being it 'entirely fills and dominates him, and embraces
him in a circular way from everywhere at once' (DM 113.10-11; cf. 103.14-
104.4, 126.11-14). For lamblichus, to become spherical was to be assimilated to
the Nous, so the spherical experience of the theurgist was a symptom of his or her
deification. The sphere held a special significance for Pythagoreans as the most
complete theophany. As lamblichus puts it, the sphere 'is both itself one and
capable of containing multiplicity, which indeed makes it truly divine, in that
while not departing from its oneness it dominates all the multiple' (Dillon 1973,
In Timaeum frag. 49.27-29). The sphere was the concrete expression-the hiero-
glyph-of the One itself, revealing the all-containing power that eternally con-
verges on itself (In Timaeum frag. 49.50-52). In the theurgist's itinerary the
circular or spheric experience was a necessary condition to unite with the One
for, lamblichus says: 'the ascent to the One is not possible unless the soul coordi-
nates itself to the All and with the All, moves itself toward the Universal Princi-
ple of all things' (Ruelle 1889, Damascius: Dub. et Sol. i 79.12-14).
This coordination begins with material theurgies, progresses through interme-
diate theurgies, and culminates finally with the immaterial theurgies that employ
mathematical images, not as conceptual abstractions but as noetic signatures of
the gods, Pythagorean hieroglyphs of intelligible reality. While we may be rea-
sonably certain that mathematic images-particularly the sphere and circle-
played an important role in noetic theurgy, we have only intriguing fragments to
shed light on how they were used or what instructions were followed in rituals
that employed them. Fortunately, however, I believe we may have specific evi-
dence for the practice of a mathematical theurgy, not from lamblichus or from
one of the later theurgical Platonists but from a rather surprising source, Plotinus.

III. The Theurgic Visualization of Plotinus

invoke the God, the creator of the
sphere whose image you now hold,
and pray him to enter.
- Plotinus v 8.9
To suggest that Plotinus practiced theurgy of any kind is certain to provoke
those who continue to regard theurgy as a form of sorcery or-more gener-
ously-as a pious but unsophisticated attempt to win favor with the gods. Earlier
disagreements on whether or not Plotinus was a theurgist continue to influence us
 135

despite the fact that the entire discussion was based on a misunderstanding of
theurgy as sorcery; the result is that we still tend to assume a far greater diver-
gence between Plotinus and lamblichus than actually obtains. 31 The connections
I have made thus far are drawn largely from the suggestions of Armstrong
197411979, Smith 1974,83-85, and particularly from Wallis 1983 who demon-
strated that Plotinus and lamblichus share much common ground as regards the
role of invisible powers in the world. That Plotinus practiced an incorporeal and
mathematic theurgy, however, is a supposition based on my reading of Rappe
1995,167 where she argues that Plotinus's use of metaphor 'approximates ritual
language' comparable to Hermetic initiatory texts. Rappe argues that Plotinus's
instructions in Ennead v 8.9 for visualizing a luminous sphere constitute a kind
of spiritual induction to shift the soul from the 'bewitchment' of discursive think-
ing into a noetic and unified experience. In lamblichean terms Plotinus's visual-
ization employs the image of a sphere as a theurgic (Juv8rW.a. to unite the soul
with the gods. Following Rappe's suggestions on Plotinus's use of metaphor, I
will examine the spiritual exercise in Ennead v 8 from a theurgic perspective.
First, however, it may be useful to outline the characteristics of a theurgic rite
before comparing them with Plotinus's exercise. According to lamblichus, every
theurgy includes the following characteristics:
1. Proper preparation of the receptacle: the ritual objects
employed must be associated with the god invoked and should
not exceed the capacity of the soul (DM 233.7-16).
2. Depending on the receptacle, some preparatory theoretical
knowledge is required to insure contact with the god. Although
necessary, this knowledge serves only an auxiliary function to
prepare the soul to receive the god (DM 98.8-10).
3. When the receptacle has been properly prepared the soul
enters into communion with the god by means of the (Juv8rllla.
and according to the soul's capacity (DM97.11-17).
4. When theurgic union is realized, the soul exchanges its
habitual self-alienated and discursive orientation for divine
V6'Tl0l~ (DM 9.16-18). The soul, as lamblichus puts it, 'takes
on the shape of the gods' (DM 184.7-8; cf. 246.18-247.1).
5. The ritual's success depends on awakening the soul's
innate eros for the divine, and the soul's possession by the gods
is measured by the intensity of this eros and by the soul's
capacity to endure it. 32

31 Merlan 1953.341-348 suggested that Plotinus practiced a foml of theurgy-understood as a

conjuring of spirits-based on the seance reported by Porphyry in VP 10. In response, Armstrong
1955, 73-79 successfully argued against Merlan' s thesis without, however, correcting the mistaken
equation of theurgy with sorcery. An unfortunate result of this exchange by such highly respected
scholars has been the uncritical understanding of theurgy as manipulative sorcery, a view following
the position articulated most persuasively by Dodds 194111949.
32 I understand the 'soul's essential desire (r<p£<ltv) for the Good' (DM 8.1-2) to be the same as
136

Rappe explains that Plotinus's instructions for visualizing a sphere are signaled
by a grammatical shift from the indicative to the imperative mood. Plotinus
enjoins his reader:
Let us apprehend in our thought this visible universe, with each
of its parts remaining what it is without confusion, gathering
all of them together into one as far as we can, so that when any
one part appears first, for instance the outside heavenly sphere,
the image of the sun and, with it, the other heavenly bodies fol-
lows immediately, and the earth and sea and all the living crea-
tures are seen, as they could in fact all be seen inside a
transparent sphere. Let there be, then in the soul a shining
imagination of a sphere having everything within it, either
moving or standing still. (Ennead v 8.9.1-10; trans. Armstrong,
modified)
Having put one's discursive capacities in service of this exercise, Plotinus then
instructs the reader to develop the image further. He says:
Keep this [sphere], and apprehend in your mind another, taking
away the mass: take away also the places, and the mental pic-
ture of matter in yourself, and do not try to apprehend another
sphere smaller in mass than the original one, but invoke the
God the creator of the.sphere whose image you now hold and
pray him to enter. And may he come, bringing his own uni-
verse with him, with all the Gods within him, he who is one
and all, and each God is all the Gods coming together into one.
(v 8.9.ll-17; trans. Armstrong, modified)
Rappe argues that Plotinus's contextual background for the metaphor of a
transparent world lies in the initiatory texts of the Hermetic corpus where she
finds striking parallels in terminology, in grammatical syntax, and in content to
the visionary induction of Ennead v 8.9 (Rappe 1995, 168). These Hermetic
texts, she argues, also use the image of the 'world within the mind' to effect the
'rebirth of the self as the world soul' (168); Plotinus, she says, has 'recast a tradi-
tion of gnosis within a framework of classicizing dialectic' (169). I would add
that Iamblichus situated that same tradition of gnosis within a more extensively
Pythagorean framework and, under the rubric of theurgy, in a more traditionally
ritual context.
Plotinus's visualization and invocation correspond to step #3 of Iamblichus' s
theurgic itinerary where the soul enters into communion with the god by means
of the (Juv~J..la, in this case the luminous world sphere. Plotinus has prepared his
readers for this event in the preceding sections of v 8. Ennead v 8.1-8 fulfill the
conditions of steps #1 and #2 in the theurgic itinerary: preparing the receptacle of

'the more ancient, unperceived desire (£<pemv) of the Good' described by Plotinus (Ennead v
5.12.17-19); Chaldean Oracles, Majercik 1989, frag. 43 refer to a 'deep eros' (~aeu~ £pOl~)
implanted by the Demiurge in human souls to draw them back to the gods.
 137

the god-in this case the soul's imagination-which demands preparatory

knowledge. Plotinus leads his readers to the induction by initially outlining the
immaterial principles of beauty in v 8.1-3 and in 4 provides a mythic image of
how one experiences beauty in the intelligible world. When one sees something
in the intelligible world
it has the appearance of a part, but a penetrating look sees the
whole in it, supposing that someone had the sort of sight which
it is said that Lynceus had, who saw the inside of the earth, a
story which speaks in riddles of the eyes which they have there.
(24-27, my emphasis)
The reader has now been primed for a wonderful experience of intelligible
beauty, but how to enter it? Not, Plotinus says, by increasing our knowledge or
developing more acute thinking skills, for the wisdom and beauty of the intelligi-
ble world are received by a kind of non-thinking, a non-discursive knowing
exemplified by the ancient Egyptians who used hieroglyphic images to enter
noetic realities directly (Ennead v 8.6). The luminous sphere of v 8.9 was Ploti-
nus's hieroglyph; for Pythagorean theurgists it was the image of the One itself. 33
After calling on readers to invoke the god of the sphere to enter, Plotinus warns
them not to diminish the experience by abstracting it into a mental exercise. He
insists that the god not be received partially or in comparison to anything else,
i.e., not discursively or conceptually. To follow Plotinus in this exercise one must
become possessed by the god invoked in the rite and embrace within oneself all
the elemental powers that exist in the luminous sphere. In v 8.10-11 Plotinus both
portrays and contains his experience of divine communion through the imagery
of the great circuit of cosmic gods in the Phaedrus, Zeus advancing first, fol-
lowed by all gods and souls who share his erotic experience. Plotinus says:
Zeus then sees these things, and with him anyone of us who is
his fellow-lover (cruvEpacrt~~), and finally he sees, abiding
over all, beauty as a whole. (23-25)
But seeing here is not seeing but erotic communion: 'there is no longer one thing
here looking at another there' (37-38). Plotinus continues:
One must transport what one sees into oneself, and look at it as
one and look at it as oneself, as if someone possessed by a god,
taken over by Phoebus or one of the Muses, could bring about
the vision of the God in himself, if he had the power to look at
the God in himself. (40-45)
Here Plotinus describes step #4 of the theurgic itinerary, when the soul is united
with the god and 'takes on its shape'. If, as Rappe argues, Plotinus has recast tra-

33 Westerink 1977, Damascius: On the Phaedo ii 117.1-2. Following a suggestion by Armstong

1937, 64-66, I think it is also possible to see the sphere as a solar image. Given the importance of the
sun in the Hermetic writings as well as for theurgists, there may be an underlying solar dimension to
this exercise. Ficino (see Language Dept., 1966,52-53), who reproduces this exercise in his letter to
Michele Mercati, clearly assumed that this induction united the soul with the sun as the 'shadow of
God'.
138

ditional gnosis into a classicizing dialectic we would err by reading his remarks
as rational discourse for Plotinus is using philosophical concepts in an evocative
manner, as ritual objects or (juve~!la't(x to effect a transfom1ation of the souJ.34
In v 8.11 Plotinus says the visionary reaches a point where he
dismisses the image, beautiful though it is, and comes to unity
with himself, and, making no more separation, is one and all
together with that God silently present and is with him as much
as he yearns to be and can be. (4-8)
Thus, like theurgists, Plotinus's readers receive the god according to their capac-
ity and in proportion to the intensity of their erotic yearning. 35
In the experience of being united with the god the soul is no longer soul, it has
become an organ of the god. It no longer sees but is the eye through which the
god sees. To acquire this eye, the soul who invokes the god must surrender its
discursive habits and even its identity. Plotinus says:
he must give himself up to what is within and become, instead
of one who sees, an object of vision to another who contem-
plates him shining out with thoughts of the kind which come
from that world. (17-19, my emphasis)
This is what both Plotinus and Iamblichus describe as exchanging human life for
the life of the gods, and although Plotinus's use of a 'classicizing dialectic' might
make his spiritual induction appear more 'rational', his dialectical incantation is
every bit as foreign to our habitual discourse as is Iamblichus's theurgy. Plotinus
reveals more details about how we enter the experience, hut for both Neoplaton-
ists the experience is a kind of not-knowing in which noetic realities do the work,
not the soul. As Plotinus puts it: 'we do not apprehend them ... we are within them
(EV EK£iv01~)' (Ennead vi 5.7.4-6). The idea that the soul becomes a receptacle of
intelligible realities is a central theme of theurgical Neoplatonism, yet for articu-
lating this point and developing Plotinian insights in a systematic way
Iamblichus has been dismissed as 'irrational' ,36 He explains our contact with the
gods saying that
it is the power of ineffable symbols comprehended by the Gods

34 Schroeder 1992, 69 points to the divine capacity of language in Plotinus: 'language belongs to
the creation and is the gift of the One to us .. , Language, especially theological language is not alto-
gether our own project' (my emphasis). That is, theological language for Plotinus comes from the
One itself and has the power to effect our return to the One.
35 The visualization of a divine image (the sphere) among Neoplatonists might be compared with
visualization practices in Buddhist tantra, The parallels with Plotinus's exercise are striking. Eliade
195811973, 208 says: 'The visualization of a divine image is followed by a more difficult exercise-
identification with the divinity it represents. A tantric proverb says that "one cannot venerate a god
unless one is a god oneself' (nadevo devam arcayet). To identify oneself with a divinity, to become a
god oneself, is equivalent to awakening the divine forces that lie asleep in man. This is no purely
mental exercise. Nor, by the same token, is the final goal sought through visualization manifested in
terms of mental experience' .
36 Discussed by Lowry 1980,20-21, who argues that Iamblichus 'carried the obvious Plotinian
philosophical standpoint to its limits and tried to validate it'.
 139

alone that establishes theurgical union. Thus we do not per-

form these acts intellectually, for then their efficacy would be
intellectual and would depend on us, neither of which is true.
In fact, these very symbols, by themselves, perform their own
work, without our thinking. (DM 96.14-97.7)
Plotinus says much the same concerning the ineffability of the noetic realm:
In the higher world, then, when our knowledge is most per-
fectly conformed to Intellect, we seem to know nothing because
we are waiting for the experience of sense perception which
says it has not yet seen: and it certainly has not seen, and never
will see things like these. (v 8.11.33-37, my emphasis)
Plotinus was well aware that his inductions into noetic not-knowing risked being
misunderstood as sophisticated descriptions of the intelligible world. But those
who prefer descriptions to an immediate experience of the god are, Plotinus says,
like people at festivals who by their gluttony stuff themselves
with things which it is not lawful for those going in to the Gods
to take, thinking that these are more obviously real than the
vision of the God. (v 5.11.12-15, trans. Armstrong, modified)
It is such gluttony that has made Plotinus into a 'rational' mystic, for the sub-
tleties of his philosophic incantations have been taken as explanations rather than
as poetic means to enter a non-discursive and noetic state.

IV. Conclusion: 'the Lynceus method'

Descending with a lamp, he thus
saw things under the ground.
- Palaephatus
Plotinus's visualization in Ennead v 8 exemplifies an immaterial theurgy that
Iamblichus says is 'performed by those liberated from the constraints of nature
and who live according to the Nous alone' (DM 223.16-19). Certainly, Plotinus
would seem qualified to perform such an 'incorporeal form of worship' (DM
219.8). For those who have already honored the gods and daimons of matter by
awakening their correspondences in the soul, and for those who have worshiped
gods in shapes, sounds, and music corresponding to their own divine proportions,
the incorporeal rites of mathematics were the final step toward theurgic deifica-
tion. In each expression of theurgy it was the soul's eros that bound it to the gods
and at each degree that bond grows in intensity as the soul's capacity for endur-
ing it increases. The mathematical rites, then, provided the most efficient recepta-
cle to contain the intensity of this erotic contact. A geometric image, such as the
sphere-or possibly the dodecahedron-was capable of containing and commu-
nicating what discursive and propositional thinking cannot, namely, the opposi-
tions that define the essence of the soul.37 As employed by Plotinus, such images

37 Timaeus 34c-36e; Iamblichus. in Stobaeus 1366; see Shaw 1995,98-106. On the dodecahe-
dron as a mean between the unified sphere and manifest multiplicity, consider Damascius's comment,
140

allow the soul to move into another reality altogether, no longer to see, think, or
apprehend, but to become seen, apprehended, and possessed by the intelligible
gods, to enter their landscape and become covered by the 'golden dust' of their
world where, Plotinus says, 'it shines bright upon all and fills those who have
come to be there so that they too become beautiful' (Ennead v 8.10.26-28).
Plotinus describes in much more detail than lamblichus the difficulty in trying
to enter intelligible reality. Perhaps the most striking is his description of our
approach to the One where the soul 'in sheer terror of holding on to nothingness,
runs away' (Ennead vi 9.3.6-7), seeking the solidity of the sensible world and
familiar habits of self-consciousness. Losing our discursively held awareness and
vanishing into nothingness is a terrifying experience that lamblichus does not
discuss, yet I think that theurgic rituals might well be seen as ways of containing
that terror, of pacifying the soul so that its divine eros can be allowed to trans-
form it. 38 For Platonists, eros was an indwelling divine power that often terrifies,
causing us, Plato says, 'to shiver and experience dread' in the face of beauty
(Phaedrus 251a). In Ficino's commentary on the Symposium, he explains the
cause for this fear, saying tersely that 'anyone who loves, dies', for the lover, no
longer held by habits of self-interest or self-reflection, vanishes into the beloved
and lives there (Jayne 1985,55). Plotinus was able to allay this fear through
evocative discourse, including the use of a mathematical (JuV9TuHl, like the lumi-
nous sphere, to contain his terror and transform it into a receptacle of the gods.
Plotinus realized that not all souls were capable of following such spiritual
inductions yet he maintained that the intelligible world may nevertheless be
engaged even in sensate experience for, he says, 'sense perception itself is
already established in the forms' (Ennead v 3.9.30). In Pythagorean terms, to see
the forms in the material world is to see the numbers that make up its invisible
framework. This is what it is to see with the eyes of Lynceus. But Plotinus does
not elaborate on the method to gain these eyes, and he generally does not concern
himself with the analogies that reveal the intelligible world here below. For
lamblichus, the noetic realities engaged in Plotinus's spiritual inductions were
also present in the traditional sacrifices and divinational rites of common people,
for the informing principles of these rites were numbers. In fact, numbers are dis-
cernable everywhere to one looking with the eyes of Lynceus, and Iamblichus
maintained that without first performing material rites the soul would lack the
foundation necessary to perform the noetic inductions.
Perhaps because he was more poet than systematic thinker, Plotinus left work-

Westerink 1977, ii 132 that 'the dodecahedron is the common transitional form between each of the
elements and the sphere ... [I]t is ruled by the providence of the Twelve Gods, who lift it up to the
height of the Intelligence (Nous) ... from the supramundane level the dodecahedral shape is imparted
to them all [the elements] to prepare them for participation in intelligence, that is, for sphericity'.
38 Merkur 1993, 165-170, in his discussion of merkabah mystics, explains the importance of
'managing anxiety' in visionary experiences. As seen in Hermetic gnosis and Plotinus, the merkabah
mystics experienced themselves as co-extensive with the entire cosmos.
 141

ing out the method of Lynceus to his Syrian successor Iamblichus. 39 The Arg-
onaut Lynceus could see treasures beneath the surface of the earth and is said to
have invented mining by descending underground with a lamp. Using the
Pythagorean lamp of numerical proportion and analogy, Iamblichus sees num-
bers in the heaviness of the sensible world and is therefore able to engage the
gods in matter. Iamblichus disagrees with Plotinus' s doctrine of the undescended
soul and insists that the soul descend with Lynceus into the cave of matter to
recover its divine treasures. With the Pythagorean principle of qnAta, which
binds all things to all in geometric equality, Iamblichus sees the same numerical
proportions in the blood of sacrificed animals, in songs, in prayers, and finally in
the immaterial expression of mathematic visualizations. The erotic circulation of
Plotinus's universe is, for Iamblichus, an unfolding of numbers descending from
the One into the density of the material world, revealing a vast net of proportions
and numerical relations. Despite their multiplicity and division, all numbers and
proportions remain united with the One by the bonds of <plAta. For Iamblichus
the union of the soul with the gods is simply an expression of the numbers them-
selves returning to the One through the embodied soul whether their circuit is
drawn in the blood of animal sacrifice or in mathematical inductions. In the expe-
rience of theurgic return, the soul's embodiment is revealed to be a pivotal
moment in the erotic circulation of the One, for the number of the body,
Iamblichus says, is ~{J)l-lt(JKO~, a term that also designates the altar of blood sacri-
fice. 4o The embodiment of the soul, then, may be seen as an altar through which
the ap18J,lOt sacrifice themselves into generated life and then-in ritual reciproc-
ity-return to their divine origin. Our blood sacrifices on the altar eventually
reveal the anterior sacrifice represented by the altar itself: embodiment, the piv-
otal (Juv8"f.la through which the ap18f.lot reach their turning point (Kal-l1t't~p)41
and are drawn back into union with the One. 42
Department of Religious Studies
Stonehill College
North Easton MA 02357

39 Hadot 1993, 36 coins the phrase 'the Lynceus method' to characterize how one may 'pierce
the material envelope of things' to see spiritual realities within.
40 In On Physical Number Iamblichus says: 'But the body (crrol.ta), being from unequal sides an
unequal times the unequal an unequal times, is neither oOld~ nor 1tAIV8i~ but a P(j)Il(crKO~, having for
sides 5, 6, 7.. .. (0 Meara 1990, 220-221).
41 Iamblichus, In Nic. 75.25-77.4, uses a OiUUAO~ (race course) to visualize square numbers in
their procession from and return to unity. In the race course, the KUIl1t~"P (turning point) is the piv-
otal moment when a square number n2 returns to its Ucr1tAll~ (starting point), beginning with 1, pro-
ceeding to n, the KUIl1t-nlP. and then returning, as follows (let n = 4): 1,2,3,4,3,2,1 = 16. The soul's
a
embodiment may be imagined as the turning point in the procession and return of pt81l0i.
42 I would like to thank Stonehill College for a summer grant to support the writing of this arti-
cle. I am indebted to an anonymous reader for his or her learned critique and to Ronald Polansky for
his helpful suggestions. Thanks also to Peter Durigon both for his critical remarks and his passionate
interest in the topic of the undescended soul, and to Vera Hachler for her assistance.
142

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