DIVINE RITES AND PHILOSOPHY IN NEOPLATONISM

The essay deals with the problem of relationship between philosophy and ritual in late antiquity and attempts at showing that their close connections in Neoplatonism were determined not only by their common anagogic and mystic aim (homoiosis theo ideal), but also by distant origins of philosophy (in the form of traditional wisdom and hermeneutics: explanations of oracles, omens, riddles, rites, and events) from the integral unit of the cosmogonical and 'seasonal' (or rather metaphysical) ritual-and-myth complexes. Philosophy in her most ancient sense and under different names can be regarded as a semitheurgic activity (framed by the particular world-model and the archaic conception of language) inseparable from the 'divinely sanctioned' law-making, ruling, healing and fighting. Even the much later syllogistic procedures and dialectical operations in some formal respect resembled ritualistic activities as if imitating certain 'rhythmical' patterns of proper behaviour in the context of the harmonious whole governed by the cosmic order or divine intelligence. Despite the welf-known prejudices of the one-sided post-Enlightenment scholars against rites and liturgies, their own zealous pedantry and strive for classifications, rules, and systems could be interpreted in the light of ancient rituals (always strict and dogmatic in every detail) and sacrifices. The integration of some religious cults, symbols, and mysteries into the body of the post-Iamblichean Neoplatonism cannot be regarded as an artificial undertaking directed against the supposed 'rationalist purity', itself partly invented by the Modern Western scholars. Rather it should be understood as the peacefulf sumphonia of the maximalfy employed human reason and ineffable divine mysteries, including all practical and contemplative (or aesthetic) sides of life.


Preamble
The contemporary spokesman of archetypal psychology lames Hillman argues that 'we can imagine nothing or perform nothing that is not already formally given by the archetypal imagination of the gods'.! Thus he turns (though maintaining that one path of the imitatio dei is through infirmity) to the main Neoplatonic theme of philosophy as imitation of the gods and striving for the 'golden' life. But life is a trouble and it is never going to be any better. In contrast to the lofty dreams of the grandeur, 'the humankind is weak and small, it sees but little and has nothingness in its nature', according to Iamblichus. Therefore the only cure for this congenital nothingness (oudeneia), confusion and unceasing change is 'its sharing to the extent possible in divine light' (De myster.III.18).
For Neoplatonists, despite different levels, ranks, and orders, everything is an irradiation of the One. The task of every being is not only to follow his noetic archetypes, but to come back, as far as possible, to the supreme and ineffable source of light. This is accomplished by rejecting the ontological distinction through a sacrificial death. Therefore we can ask: whether philosophy itself is not a sort of 'modernized' theurgy? Could we propose that theoria and theourgia, or telesiourgia, are somewhat convertible items if regarded as means of ascent in the grand cosmic theatre -the world which reveals the power of unspeakable symbols known only to the gods and the world which itself is a Myth? Indeed, for Sallustius, 'the cosmos itself can be called a myth, since bodies and material objects are apparent in it, while souls and intellects are concealed' (De diis Ill. [8][9][10].

Ritual and Cosmic Order
It is almost impossible to reveal the exact meaning of such crucial but rather Protei an terms as 'philosophy', 'myth', 'ritual', 'theurgy'. Any attempt to produce a firmly established solution raises more questions than answers. However, our humble task is not to solve the fundamental riddles of human civilization, but simply to show that, in the context of Neoplatonism and Hellenic culture, theurgy cannot be regarded as a strange misunderstanding incompatible to the rational philosophizing. This is because theurgy follows certain universal patternsuniversal in a historically determined sense of spiritual 'genre' -and philosophy itself is partly based on a ritual transformed into discursive and rational 'ceremonies' of thought. Similarly, one can see the analogy between ritual and grammar. The grammarian undertakes the same operations with respect to the text as the priest does with respect to the sacrifice: both of them decompose the primal unity, then identify the separated parts according to the new set of relationships and finally produce or confirm the unity on a higher level of synthesis.
The Neoplatonic science of dialectic follows a similar course which clearly resembles the divine manifestation and gradual integration of manifested parts into the single archetypal source. Ritual is both work, deed, enterprise (to ergon, skr. kriya) and order, rule, law (telete as an accomplishment of perfect revolution while moving in a circle, skr. rta).
As Therefore ritual and cosmic order, including order of seasons and order of logos, are inseparable. The cosmos itself is ton aidion theon gegonos agalma -'a shrine brought into being for the everlasting gods' (Tim.37c). In its outward aspect, ritual is a program of demonstrative acts and patterns which attempts at establishing the identity and solidarity of the closed group and determine its skopos and te/os.

The Aim of Philosophy
Ancient Hellenic philosophy intended to transform souls through various 'spiritual exercises', because the task of the philosopher was not primarily to communicate 'an encyclopedic knowledge in the form of a system, ,2 but to live the philosophical life. In Neoplatonism, psychogogy is tantamount to mystagogy, and the Delphic maxim 'know thyself means 'return to the source, the first principle of all'. This 'reversion' (epistrophe) is both epistrophe pros heauton and elevation through the ontological symbols accomplished by the divine energIes.
Although humans are not able to attain knowledge of the gods by their discursive reason, according to Iamblichus, philosophy in the Pythagorean manner is a road to wisdom in which one will propound, not contradictions, but firm and unchanging truths strengthened by scientific demonstration through sciences (mathematon) and contemplations (theorias). He is wise who contemplates the One, the goal of all contemplation and is able to see from here, as if from a watch-tower, god (who presides over all truth, happiness, all being, causes, principles) and all in the train of god.
The goal of the Platonic philosophy is wisdom and immortality achieved through the ascent (anagoge) of the soul. It is coming to be like a god (homoiosis theo) and union with the divine at the level of noetic theophanies or the ineffable source itself. Therefore philosophy as a rational discourse is the hermeneuticaUy developed substitute of the ancient rituals which were viewed as an integral part of the cosmic events. Philosophical games and contests for truth themselves could be regarded as special and partly individualized cases of ritualized cosmogony which is an imitation of the gods and a sort of divine service.

Different Aspects of Divine Acts
We know little about the Neoplatonic hieratic art as such, and different scholars draw different pictures of it. According to Hans Lewy, theurgy and philosophy were two parallel methods aimed at the same goal, union with the gods. 3 Laurence Jay Rosan was able to make distinction between a lawer and a higher theurgy.4 Anne Sheppard divided the Procline theurgy (as it is attested by Hermeias) into three types, claiming that 'Proc1us still thinks of the final union as a 'Plotinian' mystical experience, not as some magically induced trance',s as if the so-called lower theurgy was nothing but a silly striving for hallucinations. Arguing that Proclus re-interpreted the Plotinian mystical experience in terms of the theory behind theurgy, Sheppard describes mystical union as 'a lofty kind of theurgy because turning the "one in the soul" towards the supreme One was thought as activating a sumbolon in the direction of what is symbolized,.6 Therefore the supreme theurgy is also a theia philosophia. Gregory Shaw discerns material, intermediate and noetic theurgies, because theia erga, divine acts, in the last analysis constitute the whole path of proodos and epistrophe. They are the manifested reality as such, or rather a set of sumbola and sunthemata which reveal both demiurgic and anagogic power of the Forms and their henadic background. Therefore, as Shaw pointed out: 'The law of theurgy was the law of cosmogony in ritual expression; hence one could never ascend to the gods by favouring one 'part' of the soul over another, however transcendently the soul was imagined. [ ... ] In this sense, Neoplatonic theurgy was profoundly anti-gnostic, for it never allowed the disoriented condition of the embodied soul to be projected on the cosmos as an 'ontological' conflict' ?
Despite the different classifications derived from the painstaking analysis of the extent texts 8 and widely disseminated myth of Plotinus' exceptional and purely intellectual mysticism -which stands behind various approaches ready to ridicule le mirage de la theurgie (as H. D. Saffrey did in fact 9) or to defend it as a material basis of one's philosophical development -it should be clear that 1) one thing is to dispute endlessly about details and 2) another thing is to explore the metaphysical principles that provide the foundation for the whole super-structure of ancient hieratic life and thought. As A. H. Armstrong has emphasized, the later Neoplatonists simply 'give strong and carefully worked out arguments for the importance of sacred rites and ceremonies and the use of material symbols in our approach to the Divine and the Divine's approach to us. Therefore, the principles upon which they base these arguments are by no means always non-Hellenic or altogether incompatible with the thought of Plotinus, or even of Plato'. \0

Theurgy and Spiritual Hermeneutics
The Neoplatonic telestike (which includes purifications, katharmoi, and rites, leletai) can be hermeneutically deduced from the several texts by Plato, especially from the Laws, Timaeus, Phaedrus and Symposium. However, it seems that in a certain sense the philosophy of Plato himself is the disguised reinterpretation of Orphic and Homeric myths and motifs, or even the 'patricide' of the true Parmenides, the initiated healer and priest of Apollo, as Peter Kingsley tries to persuade US. II Much more. According to Christos C. Evangeliou, the Platonic tradition is closer to the Eastern ways of thinking (especially the Indian) than to the narrowly defined 'Western rationality'. 12 And the genesis of the entire Hellenic philosophy corresponds precisely to the time when Hellas met AiguptoS.1 3 It means that Hellenic philosophy, albeit in a radically emancipated manner, still appears as the direct prolongation of an ancient wisdom. Neoplatonism simply tries to restore the supposed primordial and sacred unity of the cosmos, regarded as a cultic body of the divinity. Therefore no wonder that theurgy albeit in Platonic terms fulfilled the goal of philosophy understood as a homoiosis theo. As Gregory Shaw pointed out, 'both cultic acts and philosophic paideia were rooted in one source: the ineffable power of the gods' .14 For Iamblichus and Proclus, the idea of the sacred tradition, received from the gods themselves and transmitted through the Hermaike seira (a sort of silsilah, regarded more in vertical than in horizontal sense), becomes the central issue.
Although Iamblichus insists that theurgy must be exalted above the discursive philosophy and exempt from philosophical criticism as merely human reasoning, he also emphasizes the necessity of proceeding in short steps, i.e. to start with material gods in the elevation (anabasis) to the immaterial gods (De myster. 217.8-11). Instead of saying that Iamblichus fully harmonized (1) the Chaldean rites of soteriological elevation in a divinely guided spiritual journey and (2) the late Neoplatonic doctrine of procession and return, we prefer to assert that he rather made explicit the initial harmony of divine rites and divinely inspired sacred knowledge which only gradually and due to the physiological, cosmological, ethical, and metaphysical interpretations was turned into a sort of philosophical discourse. The structure of syllogistic procedures and the ancient logic itself is still bound to the ritualistic patterns of order, represented by the traditional cosmogonies, and this scientific logic still functions in the cosmos which is the 'most sacred temple of the Demiurge' (Procl. In Tim. 1.124.16-22).
Iamblichus harmonized a Platonic epistemology and the conception of the anagogical force within rituals as such (be they corporeal rites and sacrifices or rituals of thought and noetic liturgies), claiming that sunthemata themselves perform their work. An ascent to the truth which is accomplished by contemplations, noetic sacrifices and inspired interpretations of symbols assists in producing the hermeneutical meta-structure of philosophy as a discourse based on the systematic reasoning and logic. Such philosophy is coextensive with sacred rites. Iamblichus says: 'Listen therefore to the intellectual interpretation of symbols according to the mind of the Egyptians (kata ton Aiguption noun ten ton sumbolon noeran diermeneusin), at the same time removing from your imagination (tes phantasias) and your ears the image (eidolon) of things symbolical (ton sumbolikon), but elevating yourself to the intelectual truth' (ten noeran aletheian: De myster. 250. 13-18).
Phantasia as a mirror can reproduce images of higher principles and by an image-making power (eikastike dunamis) the soul can make itself like beings superior to itself. Therefore Proclus argues that 'by the same power it also makes its inferior products like itself and even like things greater than itself because it fashions statues of gods and daemons' (theon le agalmata kai daimonon demiourgei: In Crat.19.6f).
The hermeneutical elevation, aimed at the intellectual truth, follows the same anagogic call for the participation in the perfection of the One, directed by the 'calling power' (he anakletike dunamis). With the help of this all pervading power, some of the divinely inspired prilosophers and theurgists (hoi hieratikoi) can achieve the union with the divine. 'Souls cannot ascent without music', according to Pythagoras, as it is related by Aristides Quintilianus. But they cannot ascend without exegesis, or sumbolike theoria, of sacred rites (teletai), myths, and fundamental metaphysical texts, such as the Parmenides of Plato, as well. In the Islamic Sufi tradition, which is partly based on the Neoplatonic intellectual heritage, the ta 'wil, or exegesis of soul, leads the soul back to its truth (haq;qat) and, according to Henry Corbin, 'transmutes all cosmic realities and relations and restores them to symbols; each becomes an Event of the soul, which, in its ascent, its Mi 'raj, passes beyond them and makes them interior to itself.' 15 By asserting that every soul and every intellect have twofold activities, (I) the unical activities (tas men henoeideis) which are better than intellectual, and (2) the intelligible activities (tas de noetikas), Proclus makes a sort of division between the rational philosophy and the final knowledge which is higher than science (In Parm. VII.63K). According to Proclus, the 'dialectical operations are the preparation for the strain towards the One, but are not themselves the strain' (In Parm. VII.7SK). Therefore 'after going through all the negations, one ought to set aside this dialectical method also'(ibid.).

Hieratic Rites of Ascent
In the extant fragments of his Commentary on the Chaldean Oracles, Proclus discusses (1) the 'theurgic race' (to theourgon phulon) which is beneficient and devoted to a zealous Despite the splendid images of the Chaldean rhetoric, this fiery elevation is at the same time understood as a Platonic anamnesis of the ultimate truth and a way to the pure noetic contemplation, thus escaping a transient nature of genesis. But the true end of the Fatherloving soul, which obeys the calling to run to the hot (since the spirit is elevated by heat) and to fly from the cold, is the all-receptive temple of the Father who receives and unites ascending souls (ibid. A 3-6, p. 206). 'Let us become fire, let us travel through fire' (pur genometha, dia puros hodeusomen: ibid. B2, p. 208), argues Proclus and explains two integral sides of this 'hymn', consecrated to God as an assimilation to him by laying aside all multitude and uniting to the hypemoetic huparxis: 'Philosophy says that a forgetfulness of eternal reasons (ton aidion logon) is the cause of the departure of the soul from the Gods, and that a reminiscense of the knowledge of the eternal reasons or Ideas is the cause of the return to them, but the Oracles assert that the forgetfulness and reminiscence of the paternal synthems (ton patrikon sunthematon) are respectively the causes of the departure and return. Both statements are in harmony. For the soul is constituted from sacred reasons and divine symbols (apo ton hieron logon kai ton theion sumbolon), of which the former proceed from the intellectual forms (apo ton noeron eidon), but the latter from the divine hen ads (apo ton theoin henadon); and we are images of the intellectual essences, but statues of the unknown synthems (kai esmen eikones men ton noeron ousion, agalmata {ta} de ton agnoston sunthematon). And just as every soul is a fulness (pleroma) of forms, but subsists wholly or simply according to one cause, thus also it indeed participates in all synthems, through which it is united to divine things' (De phi!. Chald. E 18-26, p. 211, 1-4, p. 212).
Here we have the famous distinction made between an eikon and a sumbolon. In the later Neoplatonism, higher realities may be revealed either through eikones (related to their respective paradeigmata), or through sumbola which cannot resemble the objects symbolized. However, 'similarity' (homoiotetes) is a key term in both cases, because everywhere the similar is naturally united to the similar, according to Proclus. Therefore like noetic objects are known by noesis, so that which is prior to intellect is related to the so-called flower of the intellect.
It would be rather incorrect to restrict philosophy to that limited facuIty of the soul which knows true and divine beings kata to dianoetikon or investigates cosmos through eikones (in a Procline sense, for instance, regarding the recapitulation of the Republic at the beginning of Plato's Timaeus as an eikon, in contrast to the Atlantis myth understood as a sumbolon). Likewise, to think that there is such a thing as an 'empty ritual', somewhat detached from the fundamental noetic structure of being and intellect, is too naive. The Neoplatonic philosophy itself is a homecoming rite, nostos, paradeigmatically accomplished by the Homeric hero Odysseus. The path of return is the path of an archetypal hero with a corresponding god. There are thematic connections between the conception of 'ancestor' (or sage, sophos) and the conception of hero, related to the 'seasonal eschatology.'

The Common Metaphysical Backgound
It would be incorrect to relate the Neoplatonic telestic art exclusively to the Chaldean Oracles and regard this cosmological and soteriological poem as a single mysterious source oftheurgy. Rather we should accept a fruitfull hypothesis that the Neoplatonic theurgy is only a hellenized branch of ancient beliefs that prevailed in the Middle East and Egypt in the form of the 'theurgic' kingship and ideologies of the all-embracing cosmic state. These sacred ontologies and their entirely pragmatic technologies of the temple magic, related to the supernatural cosmic bureaucracy for the purpose to ensure a harmonious flow of energy between the different levels of being, were transformed and survived now as the efficious means of personal gnostic 'salvation' -the task which constitutes raison d 'etre of Platonism as well.
Regarding Near East parallelism we ought to remember that even the most striking convergences in detail may turn out to be nothing more than a typological analogue. However, the common metaphysical background of various paths of rebirth and solar immortality, including that of the Pythagoreans, Orphics, Chaldeans, Egyptians and the Neo-Vedic initiates of the 'five fires' and 'two ways', is quite evident, notwithstanding of considerable differences in detail. According to the assertion made by Heinrich Zimmer: 'The late Vedic-Gnostic reincarnation doctrine of the "knower" who through his gnosis escapes from the sublunar world and its cycle of death and rebirth, must have had its ultimate roots in Mesopotamia. [ ... ] a Sumerian-Babylonian spiritual heritage, diffused to the Orient and there creatively transfonned, also travelled westward to become the Greek Orphism, and finally, nourished anew by the old energies of its Near Eastern mother soil, celebrated its resurrection in Gnosticism,.16 Perhaps a picture of the ideal theurgic cosmos is always the result of reconstruction, even if we understand the term theourgia not in a strictly Neoplatonic sense (as the Chaldean neologism, coined in the III century A.D.), but simply as a working of the gods (theon erga) and their theophanies, including 1) the creative or magical divine power that underpins and pervades all that exists in the spiritual, psychic and material world (since spirit and matter are woven out of the same substance ); 2) the whole eidetic meta-structure of the cosmic state and the hieratic (ontogenetic and eschatological) institute of kingship, supported by certain myths and daily rituals, thus following the macrocosmic and microcosmic 'rhythms'.

Philosophers as Sacred Statues
In the world of real hierophanies, the gods are not to be distinguished from their statues or images, since the image, by invoking the name (or the essence) of the substance imaged, is itself animated, i.e. magically transformed from being mere image to being an image infused with the spiritual (or noetic) substance it portrayed. This world is manifestation of the lifegiving and sounding noetic Light, of sound made substantial. The sacred images (seasons, landscapes, temples, statues, animals, trees, human beings as dramatis personae or their body-members, identified part by part with a number of different deities) are vehicles of an indwelling divine presence.
In the Egyptian theology (revered by theurgical Platonism for ability to imitate the nature of the universe and the creative energy of the gods), the sacred action is the action performed ritually and such action is no longer personal. The self-identification with a god is common also in the magical papyri. Similarly, the Hermetic philosopher or the Chaldean sage (representative of the sacred philosophy, maghdim) are not self-induced individual 'authors', but rather divine masks and symbols, ranks and archetypal functions. This attitude partly survived into the late Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism.
Regarding the animating of statues, we should draw certain parallels from the both Hindu and the Egyptian world. According to the Tantric view, purification of the elements and nyasa is the ritual infusion of life force into an object, including one's own body, by which it is divinized, transformed into a divine body, externally symbolized by asanas -postures, which make the practitioner immune against the onslaught from the pairs of opposites. An action or a state of consciousness that is not ritualized is merely human, but through the ritualized action or ritualized mental (eidetic) pattern the initiate becomes a mediator of the divine light. Therefore, as Jeremy Naydler observes, for the Egyptians: the gods; the gods are necessarily witnesses of and participants in the sacred rites -for this is precisely what makes them sacred,.17 Whatever external rituals may be performed, the noetic component is never absent and the intense visualization (visualizing oneself as one's chosen deity, ishta-devata, in the Tantric ascent) is the crucial step. Here the material body is also regarded as a temple of the divinity, an agalma, or a living statue, raised up in accordance with the sacred iconography. And certain Hellenic philosophers (Syrianus, for instance) indeed were regarded as divine statues. In a sense, philosopher is analogous to the agathos an er who is build up like a solid and stable statue, or kouros-like hero, fixed forever in the brilliance of an unchanging youth where everything is beautiful, pallta kala.

To Be Reborn into the Solar World
Syrianus, the famous master of Proclus and Hermeias, conceived the rites of the sacrifice, offered by the Homeric Achilles at the funeral pyle of Patroklos (Iliad. XXIII.192f), as an imitation of the soul's immortalization, performed by the theurgists (Procl. III Remp.1.152.7). This analogy cannot be regarded as entirely fabulous, because the funeral of Patroklos in Iliad, are strikingly close to the royal funerary rituals that are recorded in official Hittite documents. IS The Vedic god Agni as the supreme model and guide of rebirth himself is a psychopomp, by virtue of cremation of the dead. In his aspect of terrestrial fire, he provides the dead hero with a direct link to Agni as celestial fire: the divine Sun.
In various parts of the ancient world, the initiatory or real death was conceived as the ritualized contest for immortality in bliss as a prize to be won by those who had wished to live in accordance with virtue and to be reborn into the solar world of Agni, Ra, or Apollo-Helias. The statue-like body of Osiris is awakened by the solar rays issuing from the falcon head of Horus. And Horus himself is reborn through Osiris, thus becoming a shining spirit, or akh. Such texts as the Egyptian Book o/Coming Forth into the Day (pert em hru), known as the Book 0/ the Dead, should not be regarded simply as funerary texts. There is a firm correspondence between the temple rituals, performed by and for living, and the night journey of the Sun. The temple rituals served the purpose of achieving rebirth and bringing the soul back to its solar origins. However, they were performed for the benefit of the world as a whole (for the Beloved Land, ta-meri, which is mundi totius templum and imago caeli) and regarded as the actual return (or ascent) to the First Time (tep sepi), the realm of metaphysical realities conceived in terms of certain symbolic images that are comparable to the realm of the Platonic Ideas, understood as the beautiful, intelligent and everlasting gods, and their hiegroglyphs (medu neter).
The same task, albeit on the level of individualized and rationalized discursive thought, is performed by philosophy and, especially, by various branches of Platonism. According to Douglas Frame, in ancient times, the Sun worship habitually ends by rationalizing itself and becoming the secret possesion of the initiates and philosophers. 19 Therefore there is a close relationship between solar theologies and the elite -be they kings, magicians, initiates, heroes, or philosophers. The philosophers represent the last link in the chain of those electi, who completed the secularization of solar hierophanies turning them into ideas. The Chaldean Oracles simply re-mythologized the philosophical ideas (as the Persian theosopher al-Suhrawardi, the shaykh of Ishraq, who moved to the same direction) by turning them back into the living mythical beings of the pious hieratic imagination: the Iynges, Connectors (sunocheis), Teletarchs, angels, and daemons.

The Cosmic Theatre of Sacrificial Fires
The Chaldean cosmology as a whole is also informed by a heliocentrism in which the Sun represents the hearth or centre of the cosmos. The three worlds (Empyrean, Ethereal, and Material: cf. Procl. In Tim. 11.57. [10][11][12][13][14] can be regarded as the fiery circles dominated by the visible Sun and Moon. The architecture of cosmic spheres constituted the stage for the souls journey down and up. Both the descent and ascent are conducted by using different vehicles (ochemata) in the course of embodiment and disembodiment. Thus there are two cosmological vectors: (1) the descent and appearance on the stage of the world (skr. avatarana), comparable to that of the actor who emerges from the greenroom, and (2) the heroic ascent through the cosmic spheres which in Platonism is partly accomplished by dialectical reasoning. The cosmic theatre with its puppets (thaumata), suspended by the golden threads or solar rays from above and exciting a sort of wonder (to thaumazein) that is the source of philosophy, according to Plato, has a well ordered structure. The Year is the great symbol of the whole. As the Sun belongs to the Year, so the Moon belongs to the months. Therefore the idealized cosmology (today regarded merely as a symbol of noetic and psychic functions) reveals the energies of the gods in action and embodies the path (hodos) along which not only mythical heroes are led to Olympus, but even Parmenides is driven by the goddessses -perhaps the same 'right road to truth' as mentioned by Pindar (Ill Pythian 103).
In the all-embracing cosmic structure, aion is visualized as the synthesis of the finite and the infinite in the form of a circle. The seasons (rtu) are the doorkeepers of the spheres in the late Vedic tradition of sacrifice. The sacrifice itself is tantamount to a theurgic elevation.
Among the five sacrificial fires that constitute the Vedic cosmos, the first is that which the gods make their offerings in the upper noetic world. Its fuel is the Sun, whose rays are the smoke; the day is its flame; the four cardinal points are its coals, and the intermediate directions its sparks. In this fire the gods offer up faith (sraddha. pistis) as the unconditional certainty. According to the Upanishads: 'Those who know all this, and those, too, who in forest solitude revere Faith (sraddha) in their mind and concentration as the truly real, pass into the flame of the [cremation] fire; and from the flame, into the day, from the day, into the half-month of the waxing moon; from the half-month of the waxing Moon into the six months (the half-year) during which the Sun moves northward [i.e., into the rising year between winter solstice and summer solstice]. From those months they pass to the realm of the gods (deva-loka), and from the realm of the gods to the Sun; from the Sun to the sphere of lighting. [ ... ] That is the Way of the Gods'(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 6.2.15).20

Golden Cords of Apollo
According to the Chaldean Oracles, the soul hastens towards the streams of light. Thus the soul is drawn upward and mingles with the solar rays (fr. 66). Proclus explains that 'in the callings and self-manifestations (en tais klesesi kai autophaneiais) it seems as if the gods would approach men, whereas in fact the latter are drawn upwards by the former. For in reality the mystes is moved, while the godhead does not leave its place' (In Alcib. 398.14).
Moving away from concrete, sensible images through the fiery flower or flame of intellect, the soul extends an empty mind (teinai kenon noon) towards the highest God. As Ruth Majercik observes, the emphasis here lies on sameness, not difference. 21 But it is paradoxical that the one-sided Platonic anthropology, with its 'immortal soul' which outlasts the 'philosophically' rejected body, is built upon much older and more 'materialistic' (or rather magic) cosmology and the member-based psychology where qualities of the soul are regarded as parts of the body. Understood both symbolically and literally, fire is here of the utmost importance. It is related to the ancient conceptions of a transcendent and universal Fire of which our fires are only pale reflections.
The Jaiminiya Brahmana speaks of man's twofold possibility of rebirth: 1) in the sublunar world of mortal beings, through the womb of a woman; 2) in the imperishable transcendent world (or kosmos noetos of Hellenic tradition), through the womb of the sacred votive fire, whose flame is a messenger and intermediary between men and the gods.z 2

The Shining Forth Like a God
This position is similar to that of the god Horus-Ra, the Egyptian king as an ogre who eats men and lives on gods. He eats their heka (magic power of being, life, and intelligence) and devours their glory (Pyramid Texts 393-404). Placing himself at the hub of theophanies and assimilating their powers, he is the ritual model and prototype not only of the magician, but the philosopher as well, with only difference that for the Hellenic philosopher the distinction between the 'subjective' inner world and the 'objective' outer world is more or less firmly established.
In Egypt, the ka of the solar and lunar king penneated the whole country and was the focus of the collective consciousness. 'He was the ka of Egypt, and he was the personification of ka as experienced in each individual', according to Jeremy Naydler?6 Ka, formely translated as 'double', is the principle symbolizing physical, social, moral and spiritual appetites and tendencies, such as subsistance, creative power of food, nutrition, force, splendour, magic, illumination and so on.
The rudiments of the Plotinian metaphysics in mythological form can be seen already in the Egyptian conception of 1) ka energy of the god Horus, whom the king embodied; 2) ba as the vehicle of ascent, depicted as human-headed falcon, which exists in relation to both the physical and the spiritual worlds; literally it means 'manifesstation', but is rendered 'soul' (and therefore can be related to the Phaedrus myth); 3) akh as a state of radiance and inner illumination, connected with the solar Ra and representing the king's (who is the paradigmatic initiate and the supreme philosopher) transcendent identity with Ra, who himself emerged from the ineffable transcendence of Nun. The appearance of the king, his shining forth, is tantamount to the theophany of Ra on the primordial hill in illo tempore. The Neoplatonic philosopher is dramatically striving to reach this ineffable glory as well, but, at the same time, he likes to leave this world only after it is fully 'catalogized' according to the rules of the post-Aristotelian logic and hymned through the scientific enthusiasm -not in the same manner as it was done by his predecessors from the Middle East and Egypt, nonetheless with the same practical and theoretical zeal.

Final Remarks
Philosophy as a sort of rational and critical discourse, a set of problemata, or examination and torture of reality, was born out of the ritualized combat (agon) for wisdom, initially related to the art of solving riddles and cosmological contests for the knowledge of principles. Only after the sharp separation of inner and outer reality was made, philosophy became a mistress of the discovered and personalized inner world. Owing to this transfonnation, the spiritual and psychic events were no longer experienced by the collective immagination as outer events.
The introduction of the ancient hieratic theurgy into the one-sided and therefore too ambicious philosophy was an attempt to re-create the sacred ways of thinking in accord to the new scientific thought of the Hellenistic periodo Perhaps it is theoretically possible -through the sophisticated metaphysical exegesis -to deduce theurgy directly from the dialogues of Plato, such as Timaeus. Phaedrus, or Laws. However, the writings of Plato himself cannot be explained without references to the transmutation of archaic symbols into his own patterns of thought.
Contemplation of the wondrous works (thaumata erga) of the gods and interpretations of the mysterious cosmic order marked the start of philosophy both as physiology and metaphysics. However, despite the early raised attempts to reject the traditional myth as such, philosophy (still determined by the old patterns of thought, hidden beneaf the thin screens, parapetasmata, of scepticism and rationalism) innevitably turned towards the 'divine light', claiming that we cannot become happy unless by the aid of philosophy acquire and contempiate the wisdom of truly existing beings.
Philosophy is the science of living perfectly, according to Iamblichus. However, if the summit of perfection is achieved only through the union with the divine principles themselves and if they are called 'gods', the traditional means of ascent must be re-adapted. Therefore the marriage of philosophy and the Platonized branch of theurgy was destined a priori by the prevailing soteriological attitude towards the man's last end (te/os).