Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious OpinionVaughan, Robert Alfred
Religion
Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious Opinion
Vaughan, Robert Alfred
Mysticism -- History
WILLOUGHBY. The only further question is about your third division,
Atherton,—theurgic mysticism. We may let the Rabbinical
Solomon—mastering the archdæmon Aschmedai and all his host by the divine
potency of the Schemhamporasch engraven on his ring, chaining at his
will the colossal powers of the air by the tremendous name of
Metatron,—stand as an example of theurgy.
GOWER. And Iamblichus, summoning Souls, Heroes, and the Principalities
of the upper sphere, by prayer and incense and awful mutterings of
adjuration.
ATHERTON. All very good; but hear me a moment. I would use the term
theurgic to characterize the mysticism which claims supernatural powers
generally,—works marvels, not like the black art, by help from beneath,
but as white magic, by the virtue of talisman or cross, demi-god, angel,
or saint. Thus theurgic mysticism is not content, like the theopathetic,
with either feeling or proselytising; nor, like the theosophic, with
knowing; but it must open for itself a converse with the world of
spirits, and win as its prerogative the power of miracle. This broad use
of the word makes prominent the fact that a common principle of
devotional enchantment lies at the root of all the pretences, both of
heathen and of Christian miracle-mongers. The celestial hierarchy of
Dionysius and the benign dæmons of Proclus, the powers invoked by Pagan
or by Christian theurgy, by Platonist, by Cabbalist, or by saint, alike
reward the successful aspirant with supernatural endowments; and so far
Apollonius of Tyana and Peter of Alcantara, Asclepigenia and St.
Theresa, must occupy as religious magicians the same province. The error
is in either case the same—a divine efficacy is attributed to rites and
formulas, sprinklings or fumigations, relics or incantations, of mortal
manufacture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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