RT Article
T1 Taking the Shape of the Gods
JF Aries
VO 15
IS 1
SP 136
OP 169
A1 Shaw, Gregory 1951-
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2015
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1561994634
AB Scholarship in the last few decades has corrected mischaracterizations of the Hermetica and Iamblichean theurgy as examples of the decline of Hellenic thinking, but questions remain of how to understand them, particularly since Iamblichus claims to follow the teachings of Hermes. This essay attempts to shed light on hermetic rebirth and the immortalization of the soul described in CH XIII and NH VI.6 by examining them according to the principles of Iamblichean theurgy. I argue that hermetic immortalization and rebirth did not culminate in an escape from the body and the world but were realized—to the contrary—as a divine and demiurgic descent into the world and one’s body. While this essay owes a great debt to Garth Fowden’s The Egyptian Hermes, my reading of hermetic rebirth does not follow his dualist understanding of hermetic metaphysics and soteriology. The culmination of both theurgic and hermetic mystagogy is non-dual: deification is realized in the world.
K1 Hermes : theurgy : Iamblichus : dualism and non-dualism : esoteric : demiurgy
DO 10.1163/15700593-01501009