The Origin and Nature of Theurgy

By Frater Ramose If you have read the article A Letter of Introduction to the Hermetic Science, then this essay will be your logical next step. You now have a very, very rudimentary idea of what Theurgy is. In that letter we indicated that the Hermetic Science can be seen as en entire corpus of teachings, a large body of philosophical and mystical wisdom which can be applied towards a multitude of ends. For our sake, we have defined theurgy as the application of the Hermetic Science and its principles towards the noble end of self realization and inner illumination. In this essay we will consider with much more depth precisely what Theurgy is, how it can be recognized from other practices, what its intentions are, and from whence it came into the public world. Theurgy is viewed by its followers as the Science of Divinity or the Magic of Light, as many orders romanticize it. So many are its names, though, are so many are those who fraudulently assign those titles to their own systems and whimsical ideologies, that we must look further to see if what we are studying is actually Theurgy. The primary four characteristics shall be here provided, followed by an explanation and elaboration of the initial paragraph: 1.) Theurgy is always beneficent in nature. Be it the spiritual evolution of the individual, the exaltation of the soul or Godhead, the transmutation of the gross into the fine, or the protection of the quality of life throughout the human race, the work and aim of Theurgy is firstly beneficial to the magician, through whom others may come to be benefited. The nature of the proposed selfishness of the hermetic magicians as issued from the mouths of critics of the art shall be dealt with slightly later. 2.) Theurgy shares characteristics with Egyptian theological sciences and practices. Organizationally this includes a priesthood and a class system of sorts, seen throughout most hermetic orders. Ideologically this includes the belief in multiple layers of existence and therein several bodies composing the human persona, faith in an afterlife, and a devout study of how the natural world and the actions of the supposed gods interact. 3.) Theurgy contains components of the ancient teachings of the Pythagorean School of Mysteries, particularly the evolution of the universe and all components therein expressed via number, the geometrical fixation of stars and the proper composition of key geometric figures. Further than these we draw upon the Neo-Platonic philosophies of such scholars as Iamblichus, who resolved the Egyptian teachings with the Greek teachings. 4.) Theurgy is at once a polytheism and monotheism, believing in the existence of every supposed entity said to exist, giving each its due of respect and reverence, and yet believing also in a monad.

The Traits of Theurgy

1.) Theurgy is always beneficent in nature. Theurgy is, both in essence and expression, beneficent in nature. The abuses of magic are entirely extinct within this noble tradition, and such things are curses, hexes, spells and other such low form of natural philosophy have nothing to do with the noble work of reaching God. Inevitably the Theurgist will learn all of those things; it is a natural byproduct of personal advancement once one understands who magical phenomenon work. But the true magician, with his mind steadfast on God and on the sublimation of his character, would never dream of applying such knowledge towards questionable motives. Instead he will devote himself to practices which lift him up towards heaven, which stir his soul towards Divinity, which rapture his mind with ecstatic union, and which ennoble his character to sainthood. On occasion, when Divine Providence indicates it is necessary for the faith of others, the Theurgist will also engage in miracle working, the performance of magical phenomenon, for the glory of God and to exalt the thoughts of those who witness it. This is only a byproduct of walking this holy path, however, and the real magician would never let it become a distraction. There are two stages of progression in Theurgy: Progression of the Self and Progression of the World, successively. The first of these must be obtained in order for the second to begin. As has been stated, Theurgy is a principally beneficial science, and is first a service to the student for his own spiritual and mental advancement. Let us consider how it is that the first form of progression leads to the second. Because the ideal of Theurgy is firstly the act of personal ascension in a complete and harmonized manner, it is sometimes thought that the science is a selfish one, and that the magician does not take an active enough role in his world. Nothing could be farther from the truth, however. It is true that the theurgist seeks his own enlightenment first, but he does so knowing that it is the most efficient position from which he may properly help his fellow man. It is true even that the initiate, the Neophyte, can perhaps conjure a cool breeze to aid outside laborers on a hot day, or that a slightly more advanced student may aid his neighbors in times of sickness. These, however, are minimal in importance, practically irrelevant in the greater scope of things. This is not to say that such acts are unimportant in the whole, however, as we must never forget that the greatest good is often composed of many smaller good deeds, and so even the more temporal actions of the less advanced students are still great services to humanity. However, the Neophyte can not tell the laborers by what means they may ascend in rank and no longer have to work long days with low wages. He can lift a sickness, but not release the deeper psychological and spiritual strains which caused it, and counsel the individual in a manner that shall prevent the strains reoccurrence. The reason, of course, is that only an experienced, wise individual can operate from a seat of wisdom which truly allows him to guide others. It should also go without saying that anyone who gives spiritual counsel without having been tried by some degree of the fire themselves is a hypocrite. For such reasons as these the magician must advance himself as efficiently as

possible, ensuring some degree of his own spiritual evolution before pretending to be capable of helping others. He must not be satisfied by the simple accomplishments of the jester, the fool, who lingers for years on such things as telekinesis or affecting the motions of fire while often never achieving either. Let the easily amused leave themselves there behind, but may the dedicated magician see these as simple manifestations of his own progression; may they be looked upon as mere symptoms of evolution. Even when one has begun to instruct others in these arts, time must still be allotted on occasion to step away from helping others in order to help ones self. Without such time for personal development and attunement the faculties of even the most successful magicians shall fall into disrepair. Over time the teacher will find himself instructing his students in the ways of things he himself is no longer able to accomplish, should he not be consistent in allowing an occasional span of time for his own development. Ignorance of this responsibility dissolves the strength of the Hermetic Teachings altogether, trickling down into new generations of aspirants who find themselves unknowingly instructed by has-beens and frauds. The magician should realize that in order to put himself in the best position to help others he must make it his personal duty to become as harmonized, pure and wise as possible. You would not want your therapist to have merely read one book on therapy, your surgeon to be without practice, or a priest who has never read his holy book and never known God. In an analogous manner these responsibilities relate to the theurgist, who must be a counselor, a healer and a spiritual guide to his neighbors. To be proficient at either takes many years of study and practice, and so it becomes necessary that for the theurgist to fulfill his second principle task of benefiting his fellow man he must first evolve himself into a fitting conduit for the forces inherent in the universe over a great span of time. Even should the magician advance to an agreeable point in his own evolution, by what means can one truly change not just his own life, but the life of others? To understand this, the purpose of the evolution must first be observed. The goal of Hermetic Science is the union with God, called in Theurgy the attainment of Henosis. In attaining this the magician places his conscious intelligence not in the animalistic soul which is ruled by the ego and its lusts, but in that divine part of our soul which has come directly from God, and is still connected to Him quite directly. The inner Light of God illuminates him, triggering what is called the True Knowledge or Gnosis, and the Theurgist realizes his unity with the consciousness of Divinity. When one places his consciousness in this upper soul, he does two things paradoxically: he decides never to be a servant of this worlds base lusts, its desires, and all other such lowly components, while also deciding to become an instrument for God, i.e the intelligent universe. The Great Work prepares the mind, the body and the soul to become an instrument of the Divine Will by becoming a real part of the Mind of God. Incidentally, a good religion with strong faith will do the same thing to a man should he devote himself to it. Such people become the mystics and saints of their religions. From

that position one may act as a luminary in the world of men, and spread his light effortlessly however God inspires him to. Before moving on, we must emphasize that even such things as healing and counseling, or the performance of miracles, which the adept may engage in, are ultimately of a lower and impermanent aid to mankind. The real adept will devote himself primarily to aiding the permanent sufferings of humanity, those of the soul, outside the scope of daily life. His mere presence in the world will do this effortlessly. Should the Master Theurgist never even see another human being, locked away in some cave atop a mountain, he will still be shining his powerful light through the unconscious mind of all souls on Earth. He will perform miracles and the likes as he is lead to do by God, but his primary work will be on a deeper and more transformational level. 2.) Theurgy has its roots in the philosophies of the Egyptian priesthood and the Greek mystery schools. Much of the Hermetic Science is attributed, somewhat truthfully and somewhat apocryphally, to the ancient magical practices of Egypt. As many early writers understood it, this included the practices of the Chaldeans and Babylonians, and for the sake of simplification, may also be expanded to include various other cultures from the Mesopotamian era. Egyptian is then here used in the same sense that one may use Roman to designate the Spartan, Greek, Scythian and Roman ways of life collectively. That miniscule semantic issue aside, these practices come to refer to the belief of multiple layers of human existence reached through the plurality of bodies in the whole self, the personification of those worlds and their powers as a pantheon of diverse gods, the assumption of god forms on the part of the priest (the magician, for our purposes) and the interaction of said avatars with the rest of the spiritual world. Likewise we find from the Egyptian and Greek philosophies an invested interest in how the gods interact with this world, how they may be interacted with, and in the sense of the occultist towards what ends that interaction may be directed and harmonized with. With all this, it hardly goes without saying that a particular faith in the existence of a spiritual world and, if not an afterlife, at least a place of transition for souls, is a necessary trait of any system which claims to be hermetic. The subject of the contributions of Egypt to the development of the Hermetic Science through its pioneers, such as Plotinus, Plato, Socrates, and Pythagoras, is an immense subject which students of this system will be lead to gradually understand as they advance through the classes. Instead of going into such things here, I would like to consider for a little while the individual who actually coined the term Theurgy, and postulated in the third century AD its importance, practice, and purpose: Iamblichus. Through him I also believe it is desirable to investigate, if only shortly, the Pythagorean philosophies which have been carried into the system. Iamblichus of Chalcis lived roughly 250-330 AD, and was born in Chalcis, Coele-

Syria, from whence he would likely later derive some of his theological beliefs. He was the descendant of a long line of priest-kings, and was known throughout his life as an incredibly wise yet saintly man. Contrary to the typical saint however, Iamblichus did not live a life of poverty: in his 80 or so years of life, I doubt whether he ever tasted poverty once, in spite of his traveling and schooling expenses. In a saint this would be incorrectly perceived as a downfall; a man who desires to hold on to his material possessions or wealth would be frowned upon by Christian contemporaries. For our case however, namely the case of a student magician and philosopher, it was perfect. Why? His wealth allowed him to study unbridled by the worries of the common folk or peasants. Slaves (whom were always set free after only short intervals) kept his lodging for him, tending to what needs he had, while he spent the days and nights studying fervently the Neo-Platonic philosophies and most intensely the Pythagorean mysteries. Apart from blessing him with the time to contemplate such complex philosophies, his wealth also allowed him to study at the best academies and schools which the era could offer. The first teacher of Iamblichus was a renowned philosopher by the name of Anatolius. After hearing his lectures on Neo-Platonism Iamblichus was almost completely won over to the Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic schools of thinking. From here he traveled to the source of the present information itself: a remarkable and now legendary scholar by the name of Porphyry. Porphyry of Tyre was a Hebrew, born with the name of Malkos in 235 AD, meaning king, after his father. In spite of this, and the fact that the Hebrews had an already complex system of theology and occultism which he perhaps never actually learned of, Malkos always identified himself with the Greek method of thinking, finally moving to Rome in 263 AD where he acquired the nickname Porphyry, which refers to the purple and gold colors which laced the emperors robes. To understand Iamblichus a short consideration of Porphyry is a necessity. After moving to Rome Porphyry became a devoted follower and friend of the famous philosopher Plotinus. After the passing of Plotinus, who was most noted for his advances in regards to The Ineffable or The One Thing, Porphyry painstakingly arranged all of his lectures into a series entitled The Enneads. Porphyry wrote several other compilations of philosophy, but his most valuable contribution was likely the preservation of the teachings of Plotinus, which we would not have otherwise had. We also have Porphyry to thank for the only legitimate and reliable account of Plotinus, as he also wrote The Life of Plotinus shortly after the latters death. Plotinus attributed much of his learning to his time in Egypt, and in his Enneads we are given what must have been a largely accurate account of the inner wisdom teachings of the Egyptian Theurgists. The most profound of Porphyrys writings were Against the Christians, a rather aggravated treatise explaining certain logistic flaws in the philosophies and behaviors of contemporary Christians, Introduction to the Categories, a remarkable commentary to Aristotles Categories, and Aids to the Study of the Intelligibles, which acted as a sort of hand book for understanding Neo-Platonic philosophy. In his own accomplishments for the realm of philosophy, Porphyry advanced the existence of Platos One and Good Being as having a counter negative existence before the realm of Being or Intellect.

That is to say, he proposed of his own reasoning and understanding of the Pythagorean Mysteries the concept of a negative existence beyond all comprehension, parallel to the Qaballistic negative veils. He was among the first philosophers to commonly use the term The Ineffable in Greek Philosophy in order to refer to this version of The One. Porphyry likely derived this from the Pythagorean concept of Aion before the conception of Kronos and Rhea, or as some occultists may better understand it, the existence of Kether before the division into polarity as the male Chokmah and female Binah. Due to the lectures of Porphyry, Iamblichus developed an interest also in the teachings of Plotinus, and came heavily under his influence through his analysis and dissection of The Enneads. From this he drew more Pythagorean philosophies and shortly developed a very powerful interest in the spiritual practices of the Egyptians, Chaldeans/Babylonians, Assyrians, and even the Hebrews to one extent or another. Most instrumental to the development and advancement of his own philosophies and practices was his understanding of The Chaldean Oracles, a divinely inspired text written down by Julianus the Chaldean and his son Julian the Theurgist sometime in the early 2nd century during the reign of Marcus Aurellius. The Chaldean Oracles were a set of instructions laid down by both Julianus and Julian for the process of initiation into the Hermetic sciences. In essence, The Chaldean Oracles likely served as a merging point for the Egyptian and early Greek hermetic sciences with the Babylonian, Assyrian and Chaldean Hermetic sciences. This may have something to do with the initiation of Julian the Theurgist into the hermetic mystery schools, particularly the School of Orpheus, wherein we see an analysis of the four elements in the form of prose. This was likely coupled by the influence of an early student of Pythagoras himself, a philosopher and magus by the name of Empedocles, who would be the first to put the Pythagorean understanding of the four elements into writing as governed by the Powers of Love and Strife, that is to say, duality. Upon viewing the surviving fragments of this Chaldean poem, we see a particular set of beliefs emerge which are rather complimentary to certain alchemistic beliefs within hermetic science. The monastic God, The Supreme Principle, is characterized simply as Father, Mind, Mind of the Father, and most interestingly to Hermetic students and those who have read my treatise on the elements, this Principle is categorized also as Fire. That Celestial Fire which by its light, the L.V.X, sent forth the fabric out of which the living universe would be woven. The Primordial Point at which the Not of the Qaballists is transmuted into Kether. The Chaldean Oracles, then, dealt with Platos One and Good according to the formula of Heraclitus; that is to say, they dealt with God at the point of manifestation the alchemists Primum Mobile. Apart from movement however, this Being is presented also as Intelligent, as is the First Motive as well as the First Motion. The Oracles do not pierce as deeply as the Qaballah, however, in that they seem to stop where being stops, and look not particularly further. This may be wisdom, however, as anything past the highest point of quintessential existence can never be practical, and therefore can never become wisdom itself. As has already been seen, this parallel of the theological Qaballah was later delved into by Porphyry and his writings. Cory would later define this Chaldean Father as such:

He is the First, indestructible, eternal, ingenerable, impartible, entirely unlike aught else, Disposer of all beauty, unbribable, of all the good the Best, of all the wisest the Most Wise; the Father of good-rule and righteousness is He as well, self-taught, and natural, perfect, and wise, the sole Discoverer of sacred nature-lore. Such remarks were rather unusual in regards to a deity of the time, and so Eusebius, the biographer of Iamblichus and student of Aedesius, a direct disciple of the latter, was correct in calling the remark Persian Zoroastrianism. This was not criticism, however: simply stating the obvious to the scholarly. It is a definition with which Iamblichus himself likely agreed. A particularly important contribution of the Chaldean Oracles to the Greek Philosophers was the wisdom which Zoroastrianism had to offer regarding the threefold existence of a human being: what most are well acquainted with as the physical, intellectual and celestial bodies. As the most sensible division of bodies seemed to be the one which the Egyptian priests offered to those who were ambitious enough to travel their and learn from their mystery schools, this was a relatively new idea of the time. The Assyrians also provided copious lore regarding the trinity of the human being, for as Hippolytus writes: And first of all, in considering the triple division of Man, they fly for help to the Initiations of the Assyrians; for the Assyrians were the first to consider the Soul triple and yet one. This knowledge was synthesized into the Chaldean Oracles by its writers. The Chaldean Oracles also offer an attainment which is called That which is the end of understanding. It is the highest point of attainment within Theurgy; a state of mind similar to the Samadhi of yogis. Here the Theurgist becomes illuminated inwardly in the maximum state of understanding, total Gnosis. He can utilize his attainment of self realization, Gnosis, by further pushing towards the achievement of Henosis. In Henosis the consciousness of the Theurgist becomes identified with the consciousness of the Universe itself. The last instrumental philosophy which Iamblichus would make his own was the concept of inner divinity and the royalty of man as a representative of The Divine; a belief which we see strongly expressed in his correspondences by letter with Porphyry letters which were eventually brought together to become the book The Egyptian Mysteries, his most honored surviving work. For when Porphyry asks: How can superior beings be commanded as though they were inferiors? Iamblichus answers: Because (a) the entities which are invoked as superiors but commanded as inferiors are forces that though they are more powerful than human beings in specific fields are nevertheless inferior because they are limited to those fields (183). (b) The practitioner invokes them as a human being, but commands

them as inferiors because he is invested with Divine power. So also do we find in The Oracles: The Father controls from within and not from without; controls by being, by living within, and not by constraining. The latter is easily seen by a student of the hermetic sciences as being identifiable with the principles of invocation and natural divinity; a subject which is found even in the Christian theologies where the body is the temple within which resides God. There was a sort of clash between Porphyry and Iamblichus due to their different approaches to God. Porphyry was what the Hindu sages would have called a Raja Yogi, someone who sought God through intense reflection and contemplation. In this way the student would gradually wake up to the realization of the truth behind the veil of existence, and would achieve his Gnosis in that form. Amongst the Greeks this was a popular form of spirituality. Iamblichus, on the other hand, believed in the more active approach of the Egyptians, involving more strenuous meditative exercises, the development of the various spiritual bodies, and the use of magical energies. Therefore, with Porphyry being a leading authority of the time, it behooved Iamblichus to defend his approach, the approach of the magician, as a result of which we have his Egyptian Mysteries. His reasoning was principally that because the human specimen is a physical one, it requires a physical arena in order for an event to seem real to it. In a ritual there are three components: the physical, mental and spiritual. Likewise in man there are three components: the physical, mental and spiritual. In a parallel manner, a ritual involves the human being as a complete unit in the process which he is undertaking. The tools, geometric figures and stimulants(incense, fire, etc) provide for a setting which makes the operation appear very real to the student. Afterall, who has not done a complete authentic ritual and not felt in the process as if they were there and then part of something mythical, magical and altogether occult? When the incense is lit, the fires are burning, the circle is drawn and the mantras and invocations begin, one feels, as Regardie says: ..lifted upon his toes towards the skies, as if he could tread on the very firmament of Nuit. Iamblichus proposed that, while not entirely necessary, this was surely more helpful to the aspiring magician than simply working with intangible feelings and abstract states of mind. Even a more advanced magician could suddenly feel like a god when put in that correct theatrical setting. With the tools appealing to the physical sheathe of the invidivual, the magic words and barborous tongues often involved in a given ritual stimulate the mental aspect of the magician. They create a state of mind which the physical supplements have already set in work, and concrete the atmosphere of the ritual to the mental aspect of the student. The final step, the spiritual stimulation, comes through the invocations and evocations, as well as interaction with the resultant energies,

which is of course automatic. Iamblichus referred to all the necessary components of a ritual as synthemata, which were symbolic presences which reminded the soul and higher mind of the magician of his inner and true divinity. The ritual tools, then, were material synthemata, with each of the tools representing a certain part of that higher being which the magician was aspiring to become. The wand, for example, was a synthema (singular of the plural synthemata) of the divine volition, that true willpower which had the divine authority to command the forces of the lower world. Wielding it with an understanding of this meaning subtly reminds the student of his own inner strength and volition, and through the progressive self-hypnotism of the theatrical ritual the individual winds up forgetting entirely about the wand and directs this higher willpower solely of his own accord. Higher than material synthemata were the more subtle and refined synthemata: mental images and sounds. The next step from the heavy ritual practice is the more refined use of visualization, concentration on mental images of desired effects, and the use of simple sounds to produce a certain state of mind. For the latter, a common use within Theurgy are the names of Godhead. The most common of these in meditation are El, Elohim, Yod He Vau He, Shaddai and Adonai. In addition to these Godnames are also the magic formulae, such as IAO and LVX, which are often intoned for specific purposes in particular rituals or to induce a state of mind alongside the invocation of a specific energy. All of these mental synthemata activate a certain response from the soul, and stimulating it, can send forth a degree of force which may otherwise have required much introspection to tap. This occurs due to a subtle, often unspoken realization of the inner divinity which is reflected in the formula of these names, and which reverberates truly within the focused magician. The final synthemata would be the subtle shift of presence into a specific state of being which engulfs the entire person. Namely, a true invocation in which the magician fully brings forth and activates a part of his soul. For the invocations of the many spirits do not bring the spirits themselves down into the being of the individual, but instead use those spirits to draw out the analogous forces within themselves, until like faces like. The invocations serve to remind the invoker of the many components of his own soul, and through practice, allow him to command all the aspects of his soul completely. The nature of this relationship between the internal man and the external spirit world will be discussed in a later chapter examining the microcosm and macrocosm. In perfect awakening, there is no longer a need for synthemata of any sort, as being the divine soul himself, the magician needs no more reminders. When Porphyry died, Iamblichus seceded him as the head of the Neoplatonic School, much like how Porphyry had seceded his own teacher Plotinus. Unlike before, however, Iamblichus took Neoplatonism into a major shift of practicality alongside intellectuality, as opposed to simply the latter. He established his own school in Syria, and there he spent his time fusing the ideas of Plato, Pythagoras and Theurgy. Using the theurgy mentioned in the Chaldean Oracles, he took Julians teachings and crafted

them into an actual system of beliefs and practices using pagan spiritual practices as templates, particularly those of the Egyptians. The result was early Theurgy, and as the milestone metaphysical concepts which Iamblichus introduced to philosophy have come rolling on down through the times, it became so closely associated with the practices of hermetic science that now they exist only as one art. Iamblichus left us with the following (partially) surviving works: The Life of Pythagoras The Protreptic De Communi Mathematica Scientia In Nicomachi Mathematicum Introductionem Theologumena arithmeticae On the Mysteries, or, The Egyptian Mysteries We can say that our tradition has various fountains and confluences. The fountains are people such as Pythagoras, who come as divine messengers to bring the next level of spiritual wisdom to the people, or are origins such as the Egyptian esoteric practices. The confluences are places where various streams from various fountains come together, and turn into a single river. Iamblichus is one of the most important confluences of this tradition, since he took all that the Greek mystical practices had to offer in one hand, grasped the ancient Egyptian practices with the other, and pulled them together into a common center. In a way, he was simply reuniting two systems which had originally been one, but that over time had grown apart. He reunited them and rectified them, and again taught them as one. If such confluences did not incarnate from time to time, then all traditions would splinter uncontrollably into thousands of different lineages, and no reliable transmission of knowledge could continue. Amongst the Fountains of our tradition are Hermes, Solomon, Zoroaster, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Proclus, Akhenaten, and other such ancient personages. Amongst the Confluences of our tradition are such people as (to name a few) Apollonius, Iamblichus, Trithemius, Paracelsus, Agrippa, Francis Bacon, and Cagliostro. 3.) Theurgy is at once a monotheistic and polytheistic paradigm One of the dominant reasons Hermetic Science has lasted as long as it has, and why it has been advanced upon by so many philosophers of diverse eras, is its ability to stretch across many religious and cultural paradigms without either losing its own potency or diluting that of other systems. Though it does hold certain beliefs that some might relate to religion, it is essentially an amorphous form of spirituality which can fit into almost any other template which one might hold. The degree to which it may be merged with other sets of beliefs is limited only by the understanding, knowledge and creativity of the scholar. This malleability has allowed two things to happen throughout the systems history. First and foremost, it has kept Hermetic Science alive in the form of schools,

lodges and orders which at one time spanned almost all of Europe, England, northern Africa, much of India and parts of Asia. Hebrews, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Egyptians, yogi spiritualists, pagan mystics, Greeks and even tribal sects all did, at multiple points in time, have their own scholars that not only maintained but expounded these philosophies. This leads to the second benefit of Theurgy being so easily spread across many cultures and paradigms: the ability to catch the attention of and be elaborated upon by scholars of different religious and spiritual sects. It has allowed the Hermetic Sciences to be studied without bias by Egyptian High Priests, Catholic Popes and clergymen, Jewish Qaballists, the brighter minds of all lodges and orders associated with such paradigms, and even periodic geniuses which have appeared throughout western and eastern history (Isaac Newton, to name one). Apart from these primary organizations are also the many diverse ancient sects, such as the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Sumerians, Romans and Greeks, all of which played an incredibly important role in the development and progression of Theurgy. Almost any paradigm can fit the teachings of hermetic science into its own template if just a little bit of study is devoted to the subject. I hope that this allows a gateway for spiritual evolution that religious restrictions might have otherwise constricted beyond recovery. No matter what religious beliefs you hold, so long as they are not blatantly atheistic or directly conflict with the first characteristic of Theurgy presented earlier, Theurgy can be used, studied and practiced with no violation of religious law. I must here mention certain technicalities which have no doubt already arisen in the minds of some readers. By my statement regarding religious restrictions, the intention was not to convey the idea that religion cripples the souls advance. Being truly inflamed with passion for ones religion and its teachings is indeed a powerful mode in which to advance ones own progression in the sight of the universe. Such people are the mystics of their religions, and the teachers to those who would listen. To such as these the universe has revealed many of its least known secrets already in the forms of inspirations and visions. However, it should go without saying that the ratio of true fervent and practicing believers to undedicated believers that weakly support and practice their faith is drastically one-sided. One can go his entire life, for instance, without meeting a truly inspired religious man, and when I look at the intentions of such religions as it is painful to think that so many of its followers do not actually aspire to its lofty ideals and goals of personal and spiritual development. This is all very unfortunate; this is all very true. It does not take a scholar in religious studies to understand that across the face of the earth the most dominant difference between any two religions is its celestial hierarchy: the entity or entities whom are worshipped in that religion. This is a strange thing, as it is only those teachings of a religion which may be applied into life and practiced for the advancement of an ideal which, as far as the progression of the entire race is concerned, is actually important. Yet true as this may be, we see that religious wars are not fought over the difference between turn the other check and an eye for an eye, nor over whether or not it is right to eat something which once had the life spark in it. Instead the flame which starts fires in the hearts of men is that thought of the

hierarchy, unique between religions, for it is to their gods that most men are devoted not to their ideals. For this reason people worship Jesus Christ, yet do not cast out demons or heal the sick. For this reason people worship Allah, yet do not allow their brethren to live in peace. For this reason people could heal the sick and cast out demons, yet find themselves burning at a stake by the end of the day. It is an unfortunate cycle of misunderstanding, and one which seeking refuge in Theurgy can easily reconcile. Plainly speaking, it is the synthesis and common ground of all religion. It is spirituality stripped of the bells and whistles, of the unique clothing, of each religion. Religion comes from a root meaning to bind. Theurgy, on the other hand, is liberation. There is a virtue of Theurgy, however, which strikes out this innate evil that seems to spread like fire. In acknowledgement of the nature of religions dominant problem, the solution which is offered is the resolution of all gods into a single set, where everything is accepted and one may pick and chose as he pleases. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not seen as entirely different from Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, for example. They are viewed simply as particular aspects of the same essential forces, as one might look at one side of a box without looking at the other. You may find any god, goddess, daemon, demon, deva, angel, aeon and elemental within the cosmos, and the existence of each is accepted by the philosophies of this science. For this reason Hermetic Science can serve as a cornerstone for finding a common ground between nearly all existent religions. One may worship YHVH or worship Brahma, and yet if they are both students of the Hermetic Science they will greet each other on equal and friendly grounds, knowing that they both acknowledge the same force as supreme and universal. In time such associations of names dissipate, but these are higher levels of understanding, and can not be hoped to be attained by everyone. The understanding that we are all part of the same current in the universe, and that we are all interwoven with and by the same forces, however, can indeed be understood with a little bit of study, meditation and reflection. This, I believe, is a key step towards the progression of humanity, and the mark of a hermetic scholar. Thus we say that our science is at once polytheistic and monotheistic. It is a universal language with synthesizes the details of all religions into an understandable set of core symbols that anyone can understand. The interrelation of all things becomes perceived by the student of Theurgy, and he can move however he pleases between religions, or remain completely devoted to the religion of his preference, and still enjoy as much progress as he works for. Ultimately the mystic penetrates the veil of forms of emerges into the unified field of pure consciousness, the essence of God, where all differentiation disappears. On this level there are no gods or devils, there is only total peace, liberty, light, love, and truth. Therefore we say also that we are monotheistic, for we seek a source behind all differentiations.