NeoPlatonism, Theurgy, and the Electric Sun

[Theurgia]

Greetings. In the last few months, I've become provisionally convinced by the Electric Universe model, so it's good being here. My religion is Hellenismos, and I'm the founding peer of the group Kyklos Apollon.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7 ... 480&ref=ts

One thing I find interesting about this community is its interest in ancient religion, drawing from the work of David Talbott; I'd also been aware of Ev Cochrane's article on Apollo years before the Electric Universe had ever occurred to me.

Given this interest in these correspondences, many of you might find this interesting. It's from Gregory Shaw's Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (1995), and in particular his chapter "The Sunthema of the Sun":


"The psychic organ that received the divine light was the pneumatic or luminous body. In his treatise On Dreams (De Insomniis) Synesius identified this body with the "imagination" (to phantastikon) [which shouldn't be confused with our common "imagination," the psychological faculty] and described it as the soul's "first vehicle" (to proton ochema). It was within this imaginal body that the soul experienced its most profound illuminations."(221)

"In reply to Porphyry's questions about lights seen in divination Iamblichus explains the role of phantasia and catalogues...the various methods used to illuminate it. He explains: 'The entire kind of divination that you describe, while of many kinds, is contained in a single power which may be called "drawing in the light" (photos agoge). This power illuminates with divine light the aetherial and luminous vehicle surrounding the soul..."(221; note - I've seen such lights myself during ritual, a sort of violet glow surrounding my hands, in which I had cupped a bit of amber. Even then, before exposure to EU, I referred to the lights as a "plasma.")

"The key to these pneumatic exercises was the belief that the soul's aetheric body was directly connected with the sun, the source of light. It should be borne in mind that the radiance of this body was related, not only to the physical sun, but also to its hidden source...Julian says that Helios was surrounded by a 'fifth body' with its summit being the rays of the sun, and Iamblichus identified this 'fifth body' with aether, the same aether that made up the soul's subtle body. Thus, through its aetheric vehicle the embodied soul participated in the aetheric body of the sun in varying degrees of intensity"(223).

"To 'breathe', that is to say, to 'live' with the gods, the soul could not continue to breathe/live in an ordinary way. One could 'inhale the sun's rays' only with...a solar body."(224)

"Damascius explains that the theurgist was made divine 'when the radiant vehicle journeys upward to the sun...when we are established in the soul of the sun."(225).

[Theurgia]

"As prayers, through which sacred rites receive their perfect consummation and vigour, constitute a great part of sacrifice, and as they are of general utility to religion, and produce an indissoluble communion between the Divinities and their priests, it is necessary that we should mention a few things concerning their various species and wonderful effects. For prayer is of itself a thing worthy to be known, and gives greater perfection to the science concerning the Gods. I say, therefore, that the FIRST species of prayer is COLLECTIVE, producing a contact with Divinity, a subsisting as the leader and light of knowledge. But the SECOND is the BOND OF CONSENT AND COMMUNION WitH THE GODS, exciting them to a copious communication of their benefits prior to the energy of speech, and perfecting the whole of our operations previous to our intellectual conceptions. But the THIRD and most perfect species of prayer is THE SEAL OF INEFFABLE UNION WITH THE DIVINITIES, in whom it establishes all the power and authority of prayer: and thus causes the soul to repose in the Gods, as in a divine and never-failing port. But from these three terms, in which all the divine measures are contained, suppliant adoration not only conciliates to us the friendship of the Gods, but supernally extends to us three fruits, as it were, three Hesperian apples of gold. The FIRST pertains to ILLUMINATION; the SECOND, to A COMMUNION OF OPERATION; but through the energy of the THIRD we receive A PERFECT PLENITUDE OF DIVINE FIRE. "


-Iamblichus

[Theurgia]

"We have already seen that the Monad is associated with the Light, the Hot, and Fire. Similarly, the Zoroastrians say that the Father exists in Beginningless Light as the Mother dwells in Endless Darkness. Therefore we will see that the Sun is the preeminent symbol of the central Gods of Pythagorean theology.

First, Kronos is the Lord of Time (Khronos), as is the Sun, who defines Time by the alternation of night and day, and who governs Nature through the cycle of the seasons. Therefore, the Chaldean Oracles call the First God the Transcendent Fire. And according to Julian (331-363 CE), the First Principle is Hyperiôn (He Above All), the mythological Father of Helios (Sun) and Selene (Moon).

The Rays of the Primal Fire emanate throughout the universe, down through its levels, connecting it into one whole and harmonizing its parts. As the Oracles (fr. 81) say,

All yield to the Noeric Lightning-storm of the
Noeric Fire and serve the Father's cogent Will.

The "Lightning-storm" (Prêstêr) represents the Ideas or Connectors (see below), the Rays that integrate and coordinate the universe.

Each level has a Sun at its center, which unifies that level and bathes the lower levels in Light. Also, each level is further removed from the original Source of Light (the Light of Lights) and more admixed with the Dark; therefore each level partakes less of Unity and more of Diversity, and there is a Hierarchy of Lights. However, it is a mistake to think that the higher levels are better than the lower, for the Light and the Dark are necessary complementary Poles of The All. From the One to Prime Matter, the universe is an Image of Divinity.

In Part I ("Triadic Structure") I mentioned the Seirai, the multilevel Chords or Chains that emanate from the Monad and tie the levels together. The most important of these is the Solar Series (Hêliou Seira), the central Axis of Light, which comprises the Monad (Kronos), the Demiurge (Zeus), the Transmundane Sun (Apollo), and the Mundane Sun (Helios)."
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/ETP ... primalfire

[Theurgia]

Before finding plasma cosmology, I had an idea, strictly amateur, that might've rid the Standard Model of Dark Matter and Dark Enrergy. The idea was that the universe was like a gelatin placed atop some sort of hyperdimensional sphere. The universe was essential pouring down on all sides.

First it would spread slowly. Then, nearing the equator, it would accelerate as it dropped off the sphere altogether. This accounts for the "Big Bang," then the acceleration of the universe's spreading, without recourse to "Dark Energy."

The "missing matter" is explained by the fact that most of the universe is, hyper-geometrically speaking, "behind" us, beneath the "horizons" of our perception.

Having come upon plasma cosmology, I now know what that initial gelation-universe was made of.

Fudge!

[Theurgia]

From Porphyry, On Images

http://classics.mit.edu/Porphyry/images.html


Fragment 2

As the deity is of the nature of light, and dwells in an atmosphere of ethereal fire, and is invisible to sense that is busy about mortal life, He through translucent matter, as crystal or Parian marble or even ivory, led men on to the conception of his light, and through material gold to the discernment of the fire, and to his undefiled purity, because gold cannot be defiled.


Fragment 4

They have made Hera the wife of Zeus, because they called the ethereal and aerial power Hera. For the ether is a very subtle air.