LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF FIRE:

THEURGICAL FITNESS

AND ESOTERIC SENSITIVITY

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

        

* This article is a version of a paper I presented at the annual conference of the
International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, New Orleans, June 5 2003. *

                         

Approaches to the ‘Love of Wisdom’

 

            Let’s talk about love.  Few lovers are content merely to think about the beloved - to analyze the object of desire from a chaste distance.  They yearn to approach, to meet, to join with her.  So too with those lovers of Wisdom, the philosophers.   Commentators[1] have noted two perspectives within philosophy: the descriptive, which is more conceptual; and the evocative, which aims at the direct experience of Wisdom.   These are not opposites.  Historically their interplay has been complex and dynamic.  For instance, in ancient philosophy the Greek term nous served as a conceptual element in metaphysical systems, and also acted as a pointer toward a special experience.[2]   The Seventh Platonic Letter outlines a method to ignite it – switching attention between descriptions and images of truth until their friction sparks the illuminating vision of the Forms.[3]  It has been suggested that for Plotinus sapiential experience was primary, and that his conceptual philosophy served mainly to justify, communicate and lead others toward this experience.[4]  Several  passages in the Enneads hint at spiritual exercises to awaken nous.[5]  It has recently been argued that The Platonic Theology of Proclus is at once a work of conceptual exegesis and a device to evoke a nondiscursive  “effect that can be achieved only through an oversaturation in the discursive realm.”[6]

 

            Some modern scholars, viewing the past through the Enlightenment’s rationalist filter, have favoured the descriptive features of ancient philosophy and tended to dismiss or ignore evocation.  For example the evocative aspects of Parmenides and Empedocles have often been glossed over, despite the rather unsubtle clues as to the visionary provenance of their teachings.  Kingsley[7] has highlighted the framework of esoteric practice within which these Presocratic thinkers worked, and their cosmologies now appear in a whole new – or rather old – light.  E.R. Dodds’ infamous tagging of Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis as a “manifesto of irrationalism”[8] is another clear case of missing the evocative point; in this document Iamblichus is at pains to distinguish descriptive and evocative usages, and there is nothing irrational about that.[9]

 

            The tensions between philosophical description and evocation are nothing new.  For instance, Athanasius’ privileging of dianoetic over epinoetic readings of Christian scripture seems a precursor of the modern bias.  But the locus classicus of descriptive / evocative chafing in Late Antiquity is the exchange  between those great lovers of Wisdom, Porphyry and Iamblichus -  the Letter to Anebo and De Mysteriis.[10]  A central point of contention between them was the status of theurgy, that philosophical-ritual complex that emerged in the Near East in the second century CE.  The seminal theurgical tome, The Chaldean Oracles, speaks with a strongly evocative accent – one notable passage guides the initiate through a series of visions leading to an injunction to “listen to the voice of fire” that echoes through the cosmic depths.[11]   In Porphyry’s Letter we read his “vicious attack”[12]  on the ultimate value of theurgy; De Mysteriis comprises Iamblichus’ confident riposte.[13]  Iamblichus insists that theurgy cannot be understood through descriptive approaches alone – direct experience of the rites is required.[14]   The world and the soul are seeded with divine signs (semeia), symbols (sumbola) and tokens (sunthemata) that can nurture the theurgical experience.[15]  But mere exposure to these sacred prompts is not enough to unleash their effects.  Iamblichus emphasizes the need for  epitedeiotes - a particular “fitness” of the soul – for theurgy to come alive.[16]  Without this theurgical fitness, the unitive depths remain sealed in the signs like corpses within tombs.

 

            What did Iamblichus mean by the soul’s “fitness”?  Might it have relevance beyond the antique sages’ debate, perhaps casting light on the perennial dynamics of descriptive and evocative philosophy of which the exchange between Porphyry and Iamblichus is an instance?  The remainder of this paper considers these questions.

 

 

Permutations of Fitness

 

            What is meant by theurgical epitedeiotes?  We can explore this question using a pair of complementary frameworks.  First, let us consider the term within the context of the various meanings it bore in Late Antiquity.  Prior to Iamblichus, we can discern four major semantic domains of epitedeiotes.[17]  We designate these E1 – E4, and theurgical fitness itself, E5. 

 

 

 

E1: Potential

            This usage pertains to physics: the potential of a thing to affect or be affected in a specific manner.  Philo of Megara may have been the first philosopher to deploy epitedeiotes in this way.[18]   The Philonic term refers to the inherent potential qualities of an object.  Even if the conditions needed for the expression of those qualities never arise, Philo taught, the potential exists – for instance, it is truly said that a log has the potential to burn, even if it is submerged in the ocean, because under drier circumstances it can burn.[19]  From the second century CE, commentators paraphrased Aristotle’s writings on potential (who discussed issues of possibility mainly with reference to dunamis) in terms of epitedeiotes.[20]  Contra Philo, Sextus Empiricus defines it as a sufficient cause of actualization – the soaked log does not have the ‘potential’ for flammability, as it cannot burn in its present state.  His contemporary Alexander of Aphrodisias uses the term in much the same fashion.  At antiquity’s end we find Simplicius and Philoponus still discussing physical potential along these lines. 

 

E2: Sympathy

            The sense that the cosmos is permeated with occult links was anciently popular, especially among the Stoics.  The second meaning of epitedeiotes refers to these affinities.  The Stoically-influenced Bolos of Mendes, putative founder of alchemy, used E2 to refer to the mysterious sympathies of things that could not be explained in other ways.[21]  Posidonius mentioned the compatibility (epitedeiotes) of physical entities that have hidden connections.[22]   It was widely held that likeness is the mark of sympathy between objects.  Things that resemble each other in some fashion have an occult relationship – the sunflower looks like the sun, and partakes esoterically of its secret power.

 

E3: Receptivity

            Plotinus’ Ennead VI.4.3 states that the One is present for all beings – “the receiver was able to receive only so much, though all was present.”  And later in the tractate (VI.4.11):

 

Now one must suppose that what is present is present for the capacity [epitedeiotes] of what is going to receive it, and that being is everywhere in being and does not fall short of itself, but that is present to it which is able to be present, and is present to it to the extent of its ability.[23]

 

  And Ennead IV.8.6 states, “For there was certainly nothing which hindered anything whatever from having a share in the nature of good, as far as each thing was able to participate in it.”  Each thing is ensured “to participate in that which grants all things as much good as each one of them can take.”[24]  Here epitedeiotes shifts from the physics of potential (E1) and sympathy (E2) to the metaphysics of procession and reversion, a rotation of view from horizontal (the axis of relations between phenomena) to vertical (relations along the ontological axis).[25]  Receptivity defines the extent of a lower, more differentiated entity’s participation in a higher, more unitive one.  Ennead VI.4.11 provides two similes.  First, epitedeiotes is compared to a medium’s degree of opacity – the more transparent a thing is, the freer the passage of light.  Second, an object can simultaneously offer experiences to the different senses – colour to sight, fragrance to smell, etc.  Just as a particular sensory experience depends on the specific attunement of the sense modality involved, so the possession of the presence of Being depends on the state of the receiver’s epitedeiotes.  Although it is a simile, this linkage of receptivity with experience is momentous - in Plotinus, the vector of epitedeiotes points from physics through metaphysics to psychology.

 

            Three centuries after Plotinus, Philoponus applied E3 to the specific case of soul-body relations – epitedeiotes is the capacity of a body to be ensouled.  If this capacity is negated, as in death, reanimation is no longer possible.  He compares the body’s loss of its psychic receptivity with the impossibility of raising a wall with a lever once the wall has crumbled and lost its structural integrity.[26]

 

E4: Aptitude

            Plato’s Laws (778a 7) describe the constitution of the superior state, and mention the need to provide citizens with enough servants who have the aptitude (epitedeiotes) to help them in their tasks.  Aristotle wrote that lifeless objects have the potential only to be passive, whereas living beings potentially can be passive or active.[27]  Aristotle did not call this living potential for activity epitedeiotes, but later commentators on his works often used the term, in varying relation to the notion of ‘skill’.  Alexander of Aphrodisias calls the receptive capacity of a human being  epitedeiotes.[28]  This capacity is not learned or developed, but derives from nature.  In a passage by Simplicius on Stoicism we find aptitude – epitedeiotes – contrasted with the virtues: the former is a skill, whereas the latter are natural.[29]  Simplicius also glosses a passage of Aristotle with reference to an aptitude (epitedeiotes) that pre-exists the full development of the skill.[30]

 

 

E5: Theurgical Fitness

            These meanings of epitedeiotes predated Iamblichus and persisted after him.  Indeed, examples can be found in his writings.[31]  The usage that comes into play in the debate with Porphyry (E5) is woven of semantic threads from E1 through E4.  Six aspects of theurgical fitness are considered below: receptivity; personifying; cultivation; liminality; likeness; and imagination.  As we shall see, this set of features is also found elsewhere.

 

            For the Iamblichean theurgist, epitedeiotes figures in the relationship between the soul and the gods – that is, along the ontological axis, as in E3.  As noted above, Plotinus stated that Being is omnipresent, but possession of the presence of Being depends on E3.  Similarly for Iamblichus, the gods are not really more available at oracle sites than elsewhere; seeming variations in the divine presence do not depend on accidents of geography, but on the receptive fitness (epitedeiotes) of the souls that congregate there and on the assemblages of sunthemata to which these fit souls are attuned.[32]  E5 is in this regard a subset of E3.

 

            When proper fitness is achieved, the soul instantly unites with the divine.  Similar to the actualization of a potential (E1), the gods pre-essentially dwell within the soul and manifest as soon as  conditions are suitable.[33]  Iamblichus employs the language of polytheism to describe the encounter with more unitive Being – he personifies it as “the gods” rather than using abstract terms.  He visualizes a spectrum of divine beings, from daimones to hypercosmic deities, a personified parsing of the depth of Being.

 

            Is the soul’s fitness fixed like a trait, or trainable like a skill?  As in some versions of E4, Iamblichus held that theurgical fitness can be cultivated.  A special aptitude and a special skill are needed.  The theurgical aptitude is unlike a talent for boxing or running, in that these gifts arise from nature, whereas the theurgical knack is “divine, and … sent by the gods themselves”.[34]   Iamblichus underscores the difference between magic and theurgy.  The former operates para phusin, via the web of occult sympathy (E2); the latter occurs huper phusin.[35]  Unlike a mundane skill (techne), the theurgic art (theourgike techne) is not a manipulation of an object; divine union is not caused by the operations of mortals.[36]  Rather, it is an opening to the ever-present unitive radiance through rite, prayer and meditation.     

 

           The rites conducted at holy places purify souls, rendering them fit to receive the gods.[37]  The act of prayer “enlarges very greatly our soul’s receptivity to the gods” and “gradually brings to perfection the capacity of our faculties for contact”.[38]  In a passage contrasting dreams of human and of divine origin,[39] four aspects of the receptive soul are noted: a special form of wakefulness, something in between ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’ in ordinary terms; a fixing of sight (attentiveness); a torporous seizure (stillness); an instant rousing or responsiveness.  These features do not outline a particular state or content of consciousness.  Rather, the soul is positioned liminally, a condition of ‘in between’.  This psychic attitude is aware, focused, calm and vigilant – an apt description of meditation. 

 

            Theurgical fitness does not depend on ‘horizontal’  sympathies (E2), but retains the role of likeness first noted in connection with E2.  According to Iamblichus, things participate in the divine life to the extent that they resemble the gods.  Shaw translates a reference to sacred things in De Mysteriis as “deiform objects” that can function as “pure receptacles” (=E3).[40]  So too with the soul – as it becomes more like divinity it becomes more receptive to divinity.  Iamblichus noted that the theurgic art imitates the divine creative art.[41]  The soul’s vehicle, the body of light, is purified and takes on the shape of the gods – the sacred geometry of the circle.[42]  Itself rendered deiform, it is fit to welcome deity.[43] 

 

            The luciform vehicle of the soul was linked to the imagination – it reflects the imaginal guises of the gods when they reveal themselves in theurgic rites.[44]  For Iamblichus, the soul’s fitness determines the rank of the divine beings the theurgist can glimpse in the visions of epiphany – the fitter the soul, the more refined does reality appear.[45]

 

             Iamblichus’ account of E5 is the most detailed of this period, but we do not know whether he was the first to limn the general sense of the E5 usage.[46]  Because of Iamblichus’ prominence, Neoplatonic references to E3 after his time may be assumed to imply E5 as well.  The term crops up in Sallustius’ Concerning the Gods and the Universe XV [47],  and is also featured in Proclus, especially The Elements of Theology.[48]

 

 

The Primordial Quest and Esoteric Sensitivity

 

            A second way to explore epitedeiotes is to track the history of the question to which E5 (theurgical fitness) was offered as the answer: how to explain personal differences in responsiveness to evocative cues?  Neoplatonists debated the issue in theurgical terms; students of ancient philosophy today might speak of  description vs. evocation.  But more broadly, we are considering here why there are variations in the leaning to have certain experiences (variously and loosely labelled ‘spiritual’, ‘esoteric’, ‘paranormal’, ‘mystical’, ‘uncanny’, etc.) that suggest contact with a reality that transcends ordinary awareness.  For consistency in this paper, we will use the umbrella term ‘esoteric experience’.[49]  Explanations of variety in esoteric experience long predate Iamblichus.  The question, and the attempt to answer, seem to be primordial -  Fabrega noted that the propensity for esoteric experiences “most probably constitutes a human universal.”[50]  Bourguinon’s classic survey of 488 cultures provides supportive data – she found that 90 percent of these societies displayed “culturally patterned forms of altered states of consciousness” that were usually interpreted in transcendental terms, and concluded that “the capacity to experience altered states of consciousness is a psychobiological capacity of the species, and thus universal,” but “its utilization, institutionalization, and patterning are, indeed, features of cultures, and thus variable.”[51]  Fabrega daringly speculates that the capacity for esoteric experience appeared in the Upper Paleolithic cultural explosion around 40 millennia BCE.[52]  Such detail may be brazen, but there is little doubt that the potential for esoteric experience, and individual differences therein, are primal features of human consciousness. 

 

            If variation in esoteric experience is a basic feature of humanity, what about explanations for these differences, and attempts to enhance the propensity itself?   Here our evidence derives from the traditions of shamanism, which arose in the Paleolithic age and have endured to the present day among the remnants of hunter-gatherer societies.[53]   We note that the shamanic vocation is defined by a semantic cluster:  receptivity, personifying, cultivation, liminality, likeness and imagination.

 

           Only people with special characteristics were selected (or self-selected) for the role of the shaman.   A shaman required a receptivity to certain forms of stimulation (drumming, dancing, singing, sensory deprivation, psychoactive drugs) such that everyday patterns of mental activity would be broken, permitting alternative patterns to arise. 

 

           We learn from anthropologists who have studied surviving shamanic cultures that shamans read their experiences as contact with an otherworldly reality, and even as a journey into it.  And spirits dwell there - the images that flare along the shamanic trajectory are sensed as persons, not mere figments.

 

           Shamans have an aptitude responsive to the unmooring stimuli, but they also must learn how to plot a course through the alternative realm to reach their goals (retrieving lost souls, appeasing angry spirits, seeking healing powers, asking for the cooperation of hunted animals, etc.).   While conceptual knowledge of the shamanic cosmos and mythology are valued forms of guidance, only a spirit can grant the key to shamanic practice, expressed as a special song, dance, mask or other revelation.  In other words, some features of shamanism are cultivable, but it is not an ordinary skill – it requires a dispensation from the Otherworld.  And this is not given to everyone.  Shamanism is the primal esoteric vocation, explained as a special openness to the ‘calling’ of the spirits.[54]

 

            Another oft-noted facet of shamans is their social and ontological location ‘betwixt and between’.[55]  They act as mediators between the wild and the tamed, the visible and invisible, and also between phases of life (as overseers of initiation rites); as such they were viewed as uncanny, and often behaved in startling ways to express their intercategorical status.   The shamanic trance itself is neither normal wakefulness nor sleep, but something liminal.[56]

 

            In the deepest stages of the evoked shamanic condition, the shaman can merge with a particular spirit and be identified with it.  This experience is harnessed to gain the desired knowledge and power of the spirit, by using symbols to render the shaman as similar as possible to the sought entity - dressing in symbolic garb, wearing amulets, and singing and dancing the spirit’s signature pieces.[57]   Shamans also learn the secrets of having vivid visions, and of accurately imagining the landmarks on the path to the spirit’s home.[58]

 

            So, long before the Neoplatonic debate on variation in theurgical response, the mystery of differences in the tendency to have esoteric experiences had been widely considered.   Shamanic cultures devised humanity’s earliest explanation: people range in their ability to receive the call of the spirits.  McClenon dubbed the shaman’s esoteric responsiveness  the ‘shamanic syndrome’.[59] 

 

            The quest to explain differences in esoteric experience was common to hunter-gatherer societies and to the theurgical Neoplatonists.   In these very distinct contexts,  the quest uncovered ideas and practices that, while differing in details, share a similar structure: response to a spiritual invitation; personified encounters; receptive cultivability; liminality; identification through resemblance; and vision.  The shamanic syndrome and theurgical fitness may be viewed as cultural variations on a theme that we could call “esoteric sensitivity”.[60]

 

 

The Quest Continues: From Cosmic Battleground to

     Transliminality

 

            Differences in esoteric experience called for explanation within the cultural frameworks that replaced those of Late Antique paganism.  Late Antiquity saw the Christianization of the interpretive context - the  world became a battleground of angels and devils, and those with visionary capacities were held to be either saintly or satanic.  Sinners were prone to visits from demonic tempters, and saints were subject to the whole panoply of mystical, angelic and devilish attentions.  Naturalistic medical theories of esoteric experiences, first cast in antiquity, were somewhat marginalized in the Middle Ages, but became prominent from the 1500s.  Enlightenment thinkers viewed esoteric experiences generally as states of illness or degeneracy (herein is rooted some modern scholars’ habitual dismissals of ancient philosophy’s evocative aspects).   In the ensuing centuries, alternative explanatory frameworks persisted or emerged (eg. Romanticism, Spiritualism, Occultism).[61]

 

            By the late nineteenth century, the study of esoteric experiences was virtually the exclusive province of psychiatry.  Psychic experiences, apparitions, visions and voices, and mystical unions were construed within the range of psychopathology – they were symptoms of mental illness, tricks of the nervous system.  Another perspective dawned with the surveys and case collections undertaken by the Society for Psychical Research after 1882.[62]  These studies found no evidence that most esoteric experiences could be understood simply in terms of  illness.  Social science research over the past century has primed a growing recognition that the strictly pathological interpretation of esoteric experiences is inadequate – a sizeable portion of the populace sometimes has anomalous experiences, most of which are not obviously reducible to symptoms of mental or neurological disorder.[63] 

 

            Surveys confirmed that some people are more likely than others to have esoteric  experiences, triggering a search for an explanation – the latest morph of our primordial quest.   The most extensive research on this topic to date has been conducted by Michael Thalbourne and his colleagues.[64]   They have posited a psychological trait they call “transliminality”, defined as a “hypothesized tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness”  - in other words, “the gateways that normally operate to regulate conscious and unconscious processing may be open to an unusually high degree”.[65]   Thalbourne has developed a reliable and valid self-report questionnaire measure of transliminality.  The higher people score on this measure, the more likely they are to have esoteric experiences.[66]   And again we find that receptivity, personifying, cultivation, liminality, likeness and imagination are important descriptor categories.

 

            A noteworthy finding in transliminality research and related studies is that people who have esoteric experiences are more likely to hold paranormal or occult beliefs, and to think their experiences involve receptivity to a spiritual or supernatural reality.  Another finding is that high transliminals more often report “entity encounters” – experiences of otherworldly presences or persons, variously dubbed spirits, ghosts, aliens, fairies, angels etc.   Whether transliminality can be deliberately altered – changing the permeability between conscious and unconscious cognitive activity – has not been directly addressed by recent research, but the finding that high transliminals are more likely than low transliminals to have learned how to meditate is suggestive.[67]    And modern occult traditions are full of advice on how to enhance one’s esoteric capacities, providing much  anecdotal evidence that transliminality can be cultivated.  In these traditional practices there is a marked emphasis on relaxation, meditation or contemplation – in other words, on  loosening the liminal gates in a receptive rather than an effortful manner.   High transliminals also tend to score highly on measures of a psychological feature called “absorption”, a capacity for attention to become strongly fixed on its object.  Intense absorption is often felt as a loss of contact with one’s surroundings (as when one is immersed in a good book or plunged into a vivid fantasy), even to the point of merging with the attentional object.  Also, high transliminals are prone to having mystical experiences, in which the divide between subject and object that moulds ordinary experience is blurred or erased – a passage from distinctness through affinity or likeness to identity.  And, several variables that correlate positively with transliminality point to a strongly imaginative orientation, including hallucinations and recollection of dreams. 

 

            The main aspects of transliminality summarized above, placed beside those of theurgical fitness and the shamanic syndrome, show a common structure.    Esoteric experiences and differences in the tendency to have them are shared by all humanity.  The set of features that defines esoteric sensitivity  may also be universal.  The shamanic syndrome (openness to the call of the spirits), theurgical fitness (openness to the call of the gods), and transliminality (openness to the call of the unconscious) can all be plausibly viewed as modes of esoteric sensitivity.

 

 

Summary and Conclusions 

 

            We began by noting the historical tensions in philosophy between descriptive and evocative approaches, with specific reference to the Neoplatonic debate over the nature of theurgy.   In that exchange, Iamblichus claimed that epitedeiotes – ‘theurgical fitness’ – is needed to comprehend theurgy as an evocative, fully philosophical activity, rather than as a mere purifying prelude to true philosophizing.  We explored the nature of Iamblichean theurgical fitness from two angles.  First, we summarized the various meanings of the term epitedeiotes that had developed by Iamblichus’ time, and noted how his definition of theurgical fitness both blended and extended these meanings.  Second,  we considered the history of the more generic question to which Iamblichus offered his notion of theurgical fitness as a particular answer – how do we explain interpersonal variations in the tendency toward esoteric experiences?  We found that shamanic cultures posit a set of features that describe the shaman’s receptivity to the spirit world; borrowing from McClenon, this is  the shamanic syndrome.  We also noted that current psychological research on susceptibility to esoteric experiences has uncovered a similar complex – following Thalbourne, we label this transliminality.  The parallel features of the shamanic syndrome (the call of the spirits), transliminality (the call of the unconscious), and theurgical fitness (the call of the gods) hint that they are culturally located expressions of a universal capacity for evocation that we call esoteric sensitivity.  These shared features include:

 

·        Receptivity:  Personal responsiveness to invitation from a realm understood to be a reality transcending ordinary awareness

·        Personifying: Encounters with uncanny beings, conceived as deities, spirits, ghosts etc.

·        Cultivation: Nurturing of aptitude and practice of skill based on mutual receptivity with the transcendent, not just willful effort or manipulation of it

·        Liminality: Opening to the transcendent at thresholds, edges or boundaries of the well-defined aspects of life

·        Likeness: Identification with (elements of) the transcendent realm through resemblance

·        Imagination: Visionary imaginativeness

 

Theurgical fitness as discussed by Iamblichus thus marks the intersection of Late Antique philosophy, with its semantic heritage of epitedeiotes, and the basic human nature of esoteric sensitivity.

 

            We should note too that if a range of esoteric sensitivity exists in every age,  this range must characterize today’s generation of Wisdom-lovers.  How much misunderstanding in our own philosophical debates comes from our differing acuities to those ‘voices of fire’ in our texts, in our world and in our souls, just as in the case of Porphyry and Iamblichus?[68]

 

 

Bibliography

 

Armstrong, A.H. “Negative Theology.”  Downside Review 95 (1977): 176-189.

 

Armstrong, A.H. (Trans.).  Plotinus: Ennead IV.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.

 

Armstrong, A.H. (Trans.).  Plotinus: Ennead VI. 1-5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

 

Bourguinon, E.  “Introduction: A Framework for the Comparative Study of Altered States of Consciousness.”  In Bourguinon, E. (Ed.).  Religion, Altered States of Consciousness and Social Change.  Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1973, pp. 3-35.

 

Clarke, E.C.  Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis: A Manifesto of the Miraculous.  Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001.

 

Clarke, E.C., Dillon, J.M., & Hershbell, J.P. (Trans. & Ed.).  Iamblichus: De Mysteriis.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003.

 

Dodds, E.R.  The Greeks and the Irrational.  Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1951.

 

Dodds, E.R. (Trans. & Ed.)  Proclus: The Elements of Theology.  Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1963.

 

Eliade, M.  Shamanism:  Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964.

 

Fabrega, H.  Origins of Psychopathology: The Phylogenetic and Cultural Basis of Mental Illness.  New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

 

Faivre, A. Access to Esotericism.  Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994.

 

Finamore, J.F. Iamblichus and the Theory of the Vehicle of the Soul.  Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985.

 

George, L.  Alternative Realities:  The Paranormal, the Mystic and the Transcendent in Human Experience.  New York: Facts on File, 1995.

 

Gurney, E., Myers, F.W.H., & Podmore, F.  Phantasms of the Living.  London: Society for Psychical Research, 1886.

 

Hanegraaf, W.J.  “On the Construction of ‘Esoteric Traditions’.”  In Faivre, A., & Hanegraaf, W.J. (Eds.).  Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion.  Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1998, pp. 11-61.

 

Houran, J., Thalbourne, M.A., & Lange, R.  “Methodological Note: Erratum and Comment on the Use of the Revised Transliminality Scale.”  Consciousness and Cognition 12 (2003): 140-144.

 

Johnston, S.I.  Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Roles in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature.  Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990.

 

Johnston, S.I.  “Riders in the Sky: Cavalier Gods and Theurgic Salvation in the Second Century A.D.”  Classical Philology 87 (1992): 303-321.

 

Johnston, S.I.  “Rising to the Occasion:  Theurgic Ascent in its Cultural Milieu.”  In Schafer, P., & Kippenberg, H.G. (Eds.). Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium.  Leiden: Brill, 1997, pp. 165-194.

 

Kidd, I.G.  Posidonius: II. The Commentary: (i) Testimonia and Fragments 1-149.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

 

Kidd, I.G. (Trans.).  Posidonius: III. The Translation of the Fragments.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

 

Kingsley, P.  Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic.  Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996.

 

Kingsley, P.  In the Dark Places of Wisdom.  Inverness, CA: Golden Sufi Center, 1999.

 

Kingsley, P.  “Empedocles for the New Millennium.”  Ancient Philosophy 22 (2002): 333-413.

 

Kingsley, P. “Ancient Philosophy as Sacred Tradition.” Paper presented at the ISNS Conference, New Orleans, June 5, 2003a.

 

Kingsley, P.  Reality.  Inverness, CA:  Golden Sufi Center, 2003b.

 

Lange, R. et.al.  “The Revised Transliminality Scale: Reliability and Validity Data from a Rasch Top-Down Purification Procedure.”  Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2000): 591-617.

 

Lewis, I.M.  Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism.  Harmondsworth, UK:  Penguin, 1971.

 

Lewis-Williams, D.  The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art.  London: Thames & Hudson, 2002.

 

Lindsay, J. The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt.  London: Frederick Muller, 1970.

 

Mahdi, L.C., Foster, S., & Little, M. (Ed.). Betwixt & Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation.  La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1987.

 

Majercik, R. (Trans. & Ed.). The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation, and Commentary.  Leiden: Brill, 1989.

 

Mates, B.  Stoic Logic.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.

 

McClenon, J.  Wondrous Healing: Shamanism, Human Evolution, and the Origin of Religion.  Dekalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002.

 

Merkur, D.  Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions.  Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993.

 

Nock, A.D. (Trans. & Ed.)  Sallustius: Concerning the Gods and the Universe. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966.

 

Noll, R.  “Mental Imagery Cultivation as a Cultural Phenomenon:  The Role of Visions in Shamanism.”  Current Anthropology 26 (1985): 443-451.

 

Rappe, S. “Metaphor in Plotinus’ Enneads v 8.9.”  Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995): 155-170.

 

Rappe, S.  Reading Neoplatonism: Non-discursive Thinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

 

Ripinsky-Naxon, M.  The Nature of Shamanism:  Substance and Function of a Religious Metaphor.  Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993.

 

Rist, J.M.  Plotinus: The Road to Reality.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

 

Robinson, D.N.  Aristotle’s Psychology.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.

 

Sambursky, S.  The Physical World of Late Antiquity.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962.

 

Sarbin, T.R., & Juhasz, J.B.  “The Historical Background of the Concept of Hallucination.”  Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 3 (1967): 339-358.

 

Schmidt, M.  “Crazy Wisdom: The Shaman as Mediator of Realities.” In Nicholson, S. (Ed.).  Shamanism: An Expanded View of Reality.  Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987, pp. 62-75.

 

Shaw, G. Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

 

Shaw, G. “Eros and Arithmos: Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus.”  Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 121-143.

 

Shaw, G. “The Sphere and the Altar of Sacrifice.”  Paper presented at the ISNS Conference, New Orleans, June 7, 2003a.

 

Shaw, G. “Containing Ecstasy:  The Strategies of Iamblichean Theurgy.”  Dionysius 21 (2003b): 53-88. 

 

Sidgwick, H. (& committee).  “Report on the Census of Hallucinations.”  Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 10 (1894): 25-422.

 

Thalbourne, M.A.  “Transliminality:  A Review.”  International Journal of Parapsychology 11 (2000): 1-34.

 

Thalbourne, M.A., Crawley, S.E., & Houran, J.  “Temporal Lobe Lability in the Highly Transliminal Mind.”  Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003): 1965-1974.

 

Thalbourne, M.A., & Delin, P.S.  “A Common Thread Underlying Belief in the Paranormal, Creative Personality, Mystical Experience and Psychopathology.”  Journal of Parapsychology 58 (1994):  3-38.

 

Thalbourne, M.A., et.al.  “Transliminality:  Its Nature and Correlates.”  Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 91 (1997): 305-331.

 

Thalbourne, M.A. et.al.  “Transliminality, Brain Function, and Synesthesia.”  Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 189 (2001): 190-192.

 

Todd, R.B.  “Epitedeiotes in Philosophical Literature: Towards an Analysis.” Acta Classica 15 (1972): 25-35.

 

Versluis, A.  “What is Esoteric?  Methods in the Study of Western Esotericism.”  Esoterica 4 (2002): 1-15.

 

Versluis, A. “Methods in the Study of Esotericism, Part II: Mysticism and the Study of Esotericism.”  Esoterica 5 (2003): 27-40.

 

Wallis, R.T. “NOUS as Experience.” In Harris, R.B. (Ed.), The Significance of Neoplatonism.  Norfolk, VA: ISNS, 1976,  pp. 121-153.

 

Zaleski, C.  Otherworld Journeys:  Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

 

 

 

                                                                                Leonard George

                                                                                Capilano College