The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (63 page)

Of heavenly good; with earnest prayer entreat

Thy Father! Halt not—leave this earthly mount,

For Godlike thou shalt be—in God complete.”333

With that, Hypatia rises and leaves the room.

Theurgic Ascent:
If you want to practice Theurgic Ascent, you will have to find your own way forward, but I will give a few hints. First it is essential that the theurgist and his or her other assistants be experienced in all the other theurgic prac-

tices, the other two ascents, and of course the first two degrees of wisdom. In

particular, they must be experienced in animating images and have established

alliances with deities that can aid the ascent (that is, that they are in conscious

relation to the relevant archetypes). The initiate should also have a solid foun-

dation in these skills. This means that all the participants are experienced in

using symbols as means to connect through the Cosmic Nous to The One.

Then you will have to design a ritual or symbolic drama centered on the idea

of rebirth. You will have to pick the cultural, religious, and spiritual details to

speak symbolically to the participants. For example, it could be based on Greek

mythology, some other Pagan myths, the Christian resurrection, a modern

near-death experience, a science fiction scenario, or anything else, provided it

is authentic (and not hokey). You will have to experiment, and your procedure

will be proved by your success. Don’t expect it to work every time. It is not a

recipe; it is a preparation to receive divine grace.

298 the path of trust

Individuation

You may be wondering what could be the value of these practices today. The answer is that they help you to live in harmony with your true nature and the nature of the universe.

From a polytheistic perspective, theurgy provides the means for contacting the gods

and daimons who govern the universe. In this way you can learn the individual role you are supposed to play and can undertake it consciously. Interacting with these spirits allows you to placate those divinities who stand in the way and to recruit them and others as assistants in the conscious fulfillment of your individual destiny.

The monotheistic perspective is not much different, since theurgy provides means for communicating with the various ranks of angels who are the mediators between you and God. This allows you to get more specific information from angelic beings and to recruit their aid in fulfilling your individual purpose on earth.

Even from a purely psychological perspective, theurgy is a valuable practice (called
active imagination
). The archetypes represent the major innate governing forces of our collective unconscious; they provide the psychological and biological foundation of our individual life cycles and thus of the evolution of our species. They are the ultimate sources of meaning in our lives. Therefore, to live consciously meaningful lives, as individuals who understand their roles in the whole drama, it is helpful to consciously engage the archetypes and their dependent complexes. By consciously integrating the archetypes into our lives we progress along the path of spiritual development that Jung called individuation.

Remember:

Our goal is not to be flawless, but to be god.334

Final and First Exercise:
Chances are, you have rushed through this book to get to the end. That’s fine. Now go back through it again and make the practices a

part of your life. As Epicurus said, you can’t get healthy by reading about exer-

cises and cures; you have to
do
them!

Endnotes

1. Hierocles’
Commentary on the Pythagorean Golden Verses
, Proem 4, trans. Schibli.

2. The information about Hypatia’s life and death is drawn from the books by Dzielska (1995) and Deakin (2007), the best current sources.

3.
The Chronicle of John of Nikiu
(ch. 84, §§87–103), quoted in Deakin (p. 148).

4. Damascius’
Life of Isidorus
, which tells Hypatia’s story (Deakin, p. 142).

5. Plato,
Phaedo
, 69C, my trans. The literal translation is “narthex-bearers,” for the Bacchic wand was made from a narthex stalk.

6. Quoted from Emerson’s essay “Circles” (First Series, 10), but the analogy appears in a Hermetic text called
The Book of 24 Philosophers
, dated to about 1200; see Wind (p.

227, n. 30). See the similar idea in Plotinus’
Enneads
5.2.2. Emerson incorrectly attributed the statement to St. Augustine.

7. Plato’s
Phaedo
(80e–81a, Jowett trans.).

8. Epicurus’
Letter to Menoeceus
DL X.126). “DL” refers to books and chapters in Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers
.

9. The Delphic Maxims were widely discussed in antiquity. In his
Protagoras
(343b) Plato mentions the two most famous, “Know thyself ” and “Nothing too much.”

Eliza Wilkins’ dissertation is an old, but comprehensive review of interpretations of

“Know thyself.”

10. Verses 40–44 of
The Pythagorean Golden Verses
, adapted from Thomas Stanley’s translation (Part IX, ch. v, p. 477). See Thom’s
Pyth. Golden Verses
(pp. 38–43, 163–7) on these verses and their background.

299

300 endnotes

11. Porphyry’s
Life of Pythagoras
(sec. 40), adapted from K. S. Guthrie’s translation (
Pyth.

Sourcebook
, p. 131). It also appears in some texts of the
Golden Verses
immediately before “Don’t suffer sleep …” See Thom’s
Pyth. Golden Verses
(pp. 40–1).

12. Theorems and proofs are familiar from mathematics, but Ancient Greek
theôrêma
means (among other things) a deduced principle contemplated or investigated by the

mind (LSJ s.v.).

13. Magic as “the art of changing consciousness at will” is widely attributed to Dion Fortune (Violet Firth), but I have been unable to find it in her writings. See, for example, Berger (p. 22) and Harvey (p. 88).

14. On the New Thought movement see Braden’s
Spirits in Rebellion
.

15. For a discussion of the ideal sage, see Hadot’s
What is Ancient Philosophy?
(pp. 220–3), where the sage is described as a “transcendent norm,” and Hadot’s
The Present Alone
(p. 117)

16. Hadot attributes this phrase to Victor Goldschmidt (Hadot,
The Present Alone
, pp. 55, 91).

17. The map is adapted from a public domain map available on Wikipedia at http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RomanEmpire_117.svg (accessed Feb. 16, 2012).

18. On Pythagoras, Abaris, and shamanic connections with Mongolia and Tibet, see

Kingsley’s
A Story Waiting to Pierce You
.

19. There is scholarly doubt about the meaning of his nickname,
Sakkas
. It might refer to the fact that he dressed in a sack or in sackcloth, or that he was a sack-carrier at the docks. It apparently comes from
sakkos
, which means a cloth woven of coarse hair or a coarse beard. All the possible meanings point to a person of humble origins. See the
Oxford Classical Dictionary
(Ammonius Saccas) and Liddell, Scott, and Jones (LSJ),
Greek Lexicon
(under
sakkas
and
sakkos
).

20. Porphyry’s
Life of Plotinus
(3.6–21, Guthrie trans.), which can be found as the first section of any edition of Plotinus’
Enneads
.

21. Porphyry,
Life of Plotinus
2.26–7, trans. Armstrong (
Plotinus
).

22. Socrates Scholasticus’ account of the events surrounding Hypatia’s murder; see Deakin (App. D, Sec. B).

23. Damascius’
Life of Isidorus
, quoted in I. Hadot’s
Studies on the Neoplatonist Hierocles
(p.

2). Hierocles was quoting the
Odyssey
(Bk. 9, line 347).

24. Pico is quoting the
Asclepius
6, “magnum miraculum est homo.” See Copenhaver for a recent translation.

endnotes 301

25. From a letter by Epicurus, OF 37, trans. Erik Ander
son

info> (accessed Mar
ch 21, 2012). “OF” refers to the number of a fragment in Oates,
The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers
.

26. From Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), quoted in Thomas Stanley’s old
History of Philosophy
(1655/1743), which collects a wealth of detailed information.

27. DL X.9.

28. Stanley, Pt. 5, “Epicurus,” Ch. 15 (p. 124).

29. From Thomas Jefferson’s letter to William Short, October 31, 1819 (Forman, pp.

207–8).

30. Epicurus,
Letter to Menoeceus
(henceforth, “LM”) is preserved in DL X.122–135. This quotation is adapted from the Hicks trans. of DL X.134.

31. On compatibilism, see Michael McKenna’s “Compatibilism” (2009) in the online

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

bilism> (accessed Mar
ch 21, 2012).

32. The dialogue, of course, is fictional, except for the maxims, whose sources are documented below. The
dramatis personae
are historically documented students of Epicurus.

33. VS 59, adapted from Peter Saint-Andre’s trans. (accessed August 4, 2012). “VS” refers to the
Vatican Sentences
(VS), a collection of Epicurus’ maxims.

34. VS 68, Saint-Andre trans.

35. This Delphic Maxim, which was discussed frequently in antiquity, is mentioned by Plato in his
Protagoras
(343b).

36. From Epicurus’
Principal Doctrines
(PD) 29, adapted from Saint-Andre trans. The
Principal Doctrines
are also known as the
Key Doctrines
.

37. VS 71, trans
. from http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/VS.html (accessed 3 J
uly 2012).

38. Lucretius,
On the Nature of Things
(De Rerum Natura)
, Bk. 2, lines 1–2.

39. OF 67, trans. from Hadot (1995, p. 87).

40. VS 63, trans
. from http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/VS.html (accessed 3 J
uly 2012).

41. OF 39, Saint-Andre trans.

42. Reale,
Sys. Hell. Age
, p. 170.

43. This quotation is from DL X.130, trans
. from http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/

Lives.html (accessed 3 J
uly 2012).

44. OF 70, adapted from Saint-Andre trans.

302 endnotes

45. VS 77, trans
. from http://www.epicurus.info/etexts/VS.html (accessed 3 J
uly 2012).

46. PD 4 (Oates, p. 35).

47. PD 1, adapted from Saint-Andre trans.

48. Xenophanes, DK 21B11. This “Diels-Krantz number” is the standard way of citing the fragments the Presocratic philosophers. I’ve used the translation from Cornford

(
Grk. Rel. Tht.
, 1950), p. 85.